US military moves Navy, Air Force assets to the Middle East: What to know

Trump says US ‘armada’ is heading towards the Gulf, raising fears of a military escalation in the region.

Aljazeera, By Yashraj Sharma, 25 Jan 2026

A United States aircraft carrier strike group is heading towards the Gulf as tensions build with Iran.

The US military last staged a major build-up in the Middle East in June – days before striking three Iranian nuclear sites during Israel’s 12-day war with Tehran.

This month, US President Donald Trump backed antigovernment protesters in Iran. “Help is on its way,” he told them as the government cracked down. But last week, he dialled down the military rhetoric. The protests have since been quashed.

So what are the US military assets moving to the Gulf? And is the US preparing to strike Iran again?

Why is the US moving warships?

Trump said on Thursday that a US “armada” is heading towards the Gulf region with Iran being its focus.

US officials said an aircraft carrier strike group and other assets are to arrive in the Middle East in the coming days.

“We’re watching Iran. We have a big force going towards Iran,” Trump said.

“And maybe we won’t have to use it. … We have a lot of ships going that direction. Just in case, we have a big flotilla going in that direction, and we’ll see what happens,” he added.

The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln changed its path from the South China Sea more than a week ago towards the Middle East. Its carrier strike group includes Arleigh Burke-class destroyers equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of striking targets deep inside Iran.

The US military vessels en route to the Middle East are also equipped with the Aegis combat system, which provides air and missile defence against ballistic and cruise missiles and other aerial threats.

When Washington hit Iran’s nuclear sites, US forces reportedly launched 30 Tomahawk missiles from submarines and carried out strikes with B-2 bombers.

When asked on Thursday if he wanted Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to step down, Trump replied: “I don’t want to get into that, but they know what we want. There is a lot of killing.”

He also reiterated claims that his threats to use force stopped authorities in Iran from executing more than 800 people who had taken part in the protests, a claim denied by Iranian officials.

An unnamed US official told the Reuters news agency that additional air defence systems were being considered for the Middle East, which could be critical to guard against an Iranian strike on US bases in the region.

Iranian state media said the protests killed 3,117 people, including 2,427 civilians and members of the security forces.

How widespread is the US military presence in the Middle East?

The US has operated military bases in the Middle East for decades and has 40,000 to 50,000 soldiers stationed there.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the US operates a broad network of military sites, both permanent and temporary, at at least 19 locations in the region.

Of these, eight are permanent bases, located in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The first US deployment of soldiers in the Middle East was in July 1958 when combat troops were sent to Beirut. At its height, almost 15,000 Marines and Army soldiers were in Lebanon.

The US naval movement towards Iran was ordered despite a new National Defense Strategy being released on Friday. The document is drawn up every four years by the Department of Defense, and the latest security blueprint outlines a pullback of US forces in other parts of the world to prioritise security in the Western Hemisphere.

How has Iran responded?

Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, who heads coordination between Iran’s army and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, warned on Thursday that any military strike on Iran would turn all US bases in the region into “legitimate targets”.

General Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard, said two days later that Iran is “more ready than ever, finger on the trigger”.

He warned Washington and Israel “to avoid any miscalculation”……………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/25/us-military-moves-navy-air-force-assets-to-the-middle-east-what-to-know