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/ Updated
By Alex Johnson
The United States is sending a carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East to send a “clear and unmistakable message” to Iran, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, announced Sunday night.
While he said the United States wasn’t seeking to go to war with Iran, “any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”
Bolton said the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and an unspecified bomber task force were being sent to U.S. Central Command’s region of responsibility, which covers the Middle East. According to the Navy, the strike group left Norfolk on April 1 on a regularly scheduled deployment.
In a brief statement, Bolton didn’t say what specific actions or provocations the United States was responding to, but the announcement comes two days after the Trump administration imposed new limits on Iran’s nuclear activities and as violence is worsening in the Gaza Strip.
Iran is widely reported to fund Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the Israeli government has blamed for instigating the latest round of violence by shooting and wounding two Israeli soldiers Friday.
NBC News has previously reported that Bolton, who has long been considered a hawk on Iran, has clashed with officials at the State Department who favor maintaining all of the waivers.
The waivers allow Iran to adapt a heavy water reactor with help from China and Britain, convert a former uranium enrichment facility into a medical isotope research center with Russian assistance and operate a nuclear reactor in cooperation with Russia.
Last month, the Trump administration designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, the first time the United States has placed the designation on part of another country’s government. The designation categorizes Iran’s military alongside groups like ISIS, al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas.