Iran, Trump sends fleet: 'We'll see what happens'
US imposes sanctions on nine ships of the so-called shadow fleet and eight related companies
President Donald Trump resumed his threat to use military force against the Iranian regime, which is engaged in a violent crackdown on protests across the country. Trump said on Thursday evening that a fleet of US Navy ships was en route to the Middle East.
"We have a big flotilla heading in that direction and we'll see what happens," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday night, on his return from Davos, Switzerland. "I'd rather nothing happen, but we're monitoring them very closely."
The new warning comes after Trump withdrew his earlier pledge to strike the country, after saying he had received assurances that Iran would not follow through on planned executions of hundreds of protesters. Tehran has warned the US and Israel - which carried out strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities last year - against any attempt to intervene in support of the protests.
Contrary to Trump's claims that Iran would halt executions of political opponents of the government, the number of people killed in the crackdown on protests has soared, according to human rights organisations. A UN special rapporteur said the total could exceed 20,000 people.
The large-scale protests, the biggest threat to Iran's ruling regime in decades, were initially triggered in Tehran by the collapse of the national currency and then spread across the country with demands to end the leadership of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
