Second US aircraft carrier is being sent to the Middle East, AP source says, as Iran tensions grow

The Unit­ed States will send the world’s largest air­craft car­ri­er to the Mid­dle East to back up an­oth­er al­ready there, a per­son fa­mil­iar with the plans said Fri­day, putting more Amer­i­can fire­pow­er be­hind Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ef­forts to co­erce Iran in­to a deal over its nu­clear pro­gram.

The USS Ger­ald R. Ford’s planned de­ploy­ment to the Mideast comes af­ter Trump on­ly days ear­li­er sug­gest­ed an­oth­er round of talks with the Ira­ni­ans was at hand. Those ne­go­ti­a­tions didn’t ma­te­ri­al­ize as one of Tehran’s top se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials vis­it­ed Oman and Qatar this week and ex­changed mes­sages with the U.S. in­ter­me­di­aries.

Al­ready, Gulf Arab na­tions have warned any at­tack could spi­ral in­to an­oth­er re­gion­al con­flict in a Mideast still reel­ing from the Is­rael-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Mean­while, Ira­ni­ans are be­gin­ning to hold 40-day mourn­ing cer­e­monies for the thou­sands killed in Tehran’s bloody crack­down on na­tion­wide protests last month, adding to the in­ter­nal pres­sure faced by the sanc­tions-bat­tered Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic.

The Ford’s de­ploy­ment, first re­port­ed by The New York Times, will put two car­ri­ers and their ac­com­pa­ny­ing war­ships in the re­gion. Al­ready, the USS Abra­ham Lin­coln and its guid­ed-mis­sile de­stroy­ers are in the Ara­bi­an Sea, and the ten­sions there have led to ac­tion. U.S. forces shot down an Iran­ian drone that ap­proached the car­ri­er on the same day last week that Iran tried to stop a U.S.-flagged ship in the Strait of Hor­muz.

The per­son who spoke to The As­so­ci­at­ed Press on the de­ploy­ment did so on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss mil­i­tary move­ments.

Ford had been part of Venezuela strike force

It marks a quick turn­around for the Ford, which Trump sent from the Mediter­ranean Sea to the Caribbean last Oc­to­ber as the ad­min­is­tra­tion built up a huge mil­i­tary pres­ence in the lead-up to the sur­prise raid last month that cap­tured then-Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

It al­so ap­pears to be at odds with the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and de­fense strate­gies, which put an em­pha­sis on the West­ern Hemi­sphere over oth­er parts of the world.

In re­sponse to ques­tions about the move­ment of the Ford, U.S. South­ern Com­mand said Amer­i­can forces in Latin Amer­i­ca will con­tin­ue to “counter il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties and ma­lign ac­tors in the West­ern Hemi­sphere.”

“While force pos­ture evolves, our op­er­a­tional ca­pa­bil­i­ty does not,” Col. Emanuel L. Or­tiz, spokesper­son for South­ern Com­mand, said in a state­ment. U.S. “forces re­main ful­ly ready to project pow­er, de­fend them­selves, and pro­tect U.S. in­ter­ests in the re­gion.”

Trump, who is trav­el­ing to Fort Bragg mil­i­tary base in North Car­oli­na on Fri­day to cel­e­brate mem­bers of the spe­cial forces who cap­tured Maduro, warned Iran this week that fail­ure to reach a deal with his ad­min­is­tra­tion would be “very trau­mat­ic.” Iran and the Unit­ed States held in­di­rect talks in Oman last week.

“I guess over the next month, some­thing like that,” Trump said Thurs­day in re­sponse to a ques­tion about his time­line for strik­ing a deal with Iran on its nu­clear pro­gram. “It should hap­pen quick­ly. They should agree very quick­ly.”

Trump told Ax­ios this week that he was con­sid­er­ing send­ing a sec­ond car­ri­er strike group to the Mid­dle East.

Trump held lengthy talks with Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu on Wednes­day and said he in­sist­ed to Is­rael’s leader that ne­go­ti­a­tions with Iran need­ed to con­tin­ue. Ne­tanyahu is urg­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion to press Tehran to scale back its bal­lis­tic mis­sile pro­gram and end its sup­port for mil­i­tant groups such as Hamas and Hezbol­lah as part of any deal.

The USS Ford set out on de­ploy­ment in late June 2025, which means the crew will have been de­ployed for eight months in two weeks’ time. While it is un­clear how long the ship will re­main in the Mid­dle East, the move sets the crew up for an un­usu­al­ly long de­ploy­ment.

The White House didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment.

Ford’s de­ploy­ment comes as Iran mourns

Iran at home faces still-sim­mer­ing anger over its wide-rang­ing sup­pres­sion of all dis­sent. That rage may in­ten­si­fy in the com­ing days as fam­i­lies of the dead be­gin mark­ing the tra­di­tion­al 40-day mourn­ing for the loved ones. Al­ready, on­line videos have shown mourn­ers gath­er­ing in dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try, hold­ing por­traits of their dead.

One video pur­port­ed to show mourn­ers at a grave­yard in Iran’s Raza­vi Kho­rasan province on Thurs­day. There, with a large portable speak­er, peo­ple sang the pa­tri­ot­ic song “Ey Iran,” which dates to 1940s Iran un­der the rule of Shah Mo­ham­mad Reza Pahlavi. While ini­tial­ly banned af­ter the 1979 Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion, Iran’s theo­crat­ic gov­ern­ment has played it to drum up sup­port.

“Oh Iran, a land of full of jew­els, your soil is full of art,” they sang. “May evil wish­es be far from you. May you live eter­nal. Oh en­e­my, if you are a piece of gran­ite, I am iron.” —WASH­ING­TON (AP)

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Sto­ry by KON­STAN­TIN TOROPIN and JON GAM­BRELL | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Jon Gam­brell re­port­ed from Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Aamer Mad­hani in Wash­ing­ton con­tributed to this re­port.