As Iran promised to retaliate against any strike and President Donald Trump stated he thought the Islamic republic still want negotiations, a US Navy strike group headed by an aircraft carrier was in Middle Eastern waters on Tuesday.
In response to Tehran’s assault on rallies, which rights organizations claim killed hundreds of people in a matter of days, Washington has not ruled out further military action.
According to US Central Command, a strike group headed by the USS Abraham Lincoln has now reached Middle Eastern waters, but it did not specify where.
Trump has offered conflicting signals regarding involvement, which some opponents of the religious authority believe is the only way to effect change, since Iran began its crackdown on protests earlier this month along with a complete internet blackout.
Next to Iran, we have a sizable armada. Bigger than Venezuela,” Trump said to the news website Axios, weeks after Nicolas Maduro, the president of the Latin American country, was apprehended by US military action.
“They want to make a deal,” he continued. I am aware of this. They made multiple calls. They wish to converse.
According to Axios, Trump refused to say which of the options his national security team had given him he preferred.
In a comprehensive attempt to overthrow the regime that has governed Iran since the Islamic revolution that overthrew the shah in 1979, analysts say alternatives include attacks on military installations or focused assaults on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s leadership.
“Weakest point”: According to the New York Times, Trump has received numerous US intelligence reports “indicating that the Iranian government’s position is weakening” and indicating that its grasp on power “is at its weakest point” since the fall of the shah.
The paper was informed by US Senator Lindsey Graham that he had discussed Iran with Trump recently and that “the goal is to end the regime.”
Over the past few days, Iranian officials have seemed cautious about adding fuel to the flames.
Despite the lack of diplomatic ties between the two adversaries, Tehran has previously stated that US envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi have open lines of contact.
However, Revolutionary Guards spokesman Mohammad Ali Naini was quoted by the hardline Hamshahri newspaper on Tuesday as stating that “if their aircraft carrier made a mistake and entered Iranian territorial waters, it would be targeted.”
Iran was “ready for a major response,” according to the conservative Javan newspaper, and would take control of the vital Strait of Hormuz, a crucial transit corridor for energy supplies.
In the meantime, an anti-US billboard that purports to depict the destruction of an American aircraft carrier has surfaced in Tehran.
“Intimidation and mass arrests”
Rights organizations have called the crackdown the deadliest against protests in Iran’s history and caution that the nearly three-week internet outage, which they claim is intended to conceal the severity of the repression, has made it difficult to compile counts.
5,777 protestors, 86 minors, 214 members of the security forces, and 49 bystanders were among the 6,126 confirmed deaths, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
However, the group, which has tracked the protests every day since they started and has a wide network of informants within Iran, added that it was still looking into another 17,091 potential deaths.
It stated that at least 41,880 persons had been taken into custody.
According to HRANA, “security agencies continue to pursue an approach centered on mass arrests, intimidation, and control of the narrative.”
Authorities have been accused by activists of searching hospitals for injured protestors and then detaining them. According to the health ministry, everyone should go to the hospital without fear and avoid taking care of oneself at home.
Over 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces on January 8 and 9, according to reports, records, and sources cited by the Persian-language TV program Iran International, which is based outside of Iran, over the weekend.
The report could not be verified right away.
