US to deploy new aircraft carrier to Middle East as Trump warns Iran

Tensions have escalated between the Islamic republic and its traditional foe Washington in the wake of a deadly crackdown by security forces on protests last month that rights groups say killed thousands.

While the protests have subsided for now in the face of the repression, US-based Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah ousted by the 1979 Islamic revolution, urged Iranians to chant slogans against the clerical establishment in the coming days to coincide with demonstrations abroad.

Rather than pointing to the crackdown -- which has seen tens of thousands arrested and hundreds facing possible execution, according to rights groups -- Trump has made refraining from military action conditional on a deal to curb Iran's nuclear programme, which the West fears is aimed at making a bomb.

"We have to make a deal, otherwise it's going to be very traumatic, very traumatic. I don't want that to happen, but we have to make a deal," Trump told reporters on Thursday.

Trump had already sent one aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, to the Middle East in a warning to Tehran, and multiple US media outlets said a second carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and its escort ships would also be sent to the region.

The vessels led by the Ford, currently deployed to the Caribbean, are not expected to return to their home ports until late April or early May, the New York Times said.

Representatives of Iran and the United States, who have had no diplomatic relations since shortly after the revolution, held talks on the nuclear programme last week in Oman.

While no dates have been set for new talks, there have been indications that Trump is upbeat about the prospects for a deal.
'Execution risk'
Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu said after meeting Trump in Washington that the US leader believed he may clinch a "good deal", though the Israeli prime minister himself expressed scepticism at the quality of any agreement if it didn't also cover Iran's ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies.

The United States joined Israel's 12-day war against the Islamic republic in June, carrying out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

But there is no consensus on what Washington would target in new strikes or whether it would seek to slacken supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's grip on power.

Pahlavi in a post on X urged Iranians inside the country to add their voices to protests planned abroad on Saturday by chanting slogans from their homes and rooftops.

Videos verified by AFP showed people in Iran this week chanting anti-government slogans as the clerical leadership celebrated the anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, 7,005 people, mostly protesters, were killed in the recent crackdown, though rights groups warn the toll is likely far higher.

More than 53,000 people have also been arrested, it added.

The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) NGO said "hundreds" of people were facing charges linked to the protests that could see them sentenced to death.

It said one protester Saleh Mohammadi, 18, had already been sentenced to death on charges of killing a policeman, although the Iranian judiciary said no final and "enforceable" verdict had been issued in the case.

Mohammadi, a wrestler, under Iranian law has 20 days to appeal the verdict, which stated he should be hanged in public at the scene of the alleged crime, according to IHR.

Figures working within the Iranian system have also been arrested, with three politicians detained this week from the so-called reformist wing of Iranian politics supportive of President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The three -- Azar Mansouri, Javad Emam and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh -- were released on bail Friday, their lawyer Hojjat Kermani told the ISNA news agency.

Iranian government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani told ISNA that a "fact-finding committee" would publish a report about the protests, without specifying the focus.