US-Iran tensions: F-35, F-22, and F-16 fighter jets moved to Middle East — Is Tehran on the verge of being attacked?

THE United States is assembling additional forces in the Middle East for a potential action against Iran, as over 50 F-35, F-22, and F-16 fighter jets have been sent to the region over the last 24 hours, according to Axios report, which cited open-source flight radar data and a US official.

This comes amid Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi stating that they had managed to reach a broad understanding on several guiding principles, which would serve as the foundation for moving ahead and drafting the text of a possible agreement.

Araghchi added that discussions in Geneva were “serious, constructive and positive," noting that “good progress was made compared to the previous meeting, and we now have a clearer path ahead”.

He informed Iranian state television that different ideas were put forth and discussed seriously. He added that this did not imply an agreement would be achieved soon, but it marked the beginning of the process.

Iran declared the temporary shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday for live fire drills in a rare show of strength.

US President Donald Trump, who abandoned a nuclear deal with Iran during his first administration, has continuously cautioned against using force to urge Iran to agree to limit its nuclear program. Iran has mentioned it would retaliate, while Trump has also warned Iran over the protestors who were killed.

At the end of January, the United States dispatched its aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, to the Arabian Sea as tensions escalated. In the first week of February, the BBC reported that around twelve F-15 fighter jets, an MQ-9 Reaper drone, and multiple A-10C Thunderbolt II ground-attack aircraft were also deployed to Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

The USS Gerald R. Ford and its accompanying destroyers, the Mahan, Bainbridge, and Winston Churchill, have moved into the mid-Atlantic, officially leaving the US Southern Command’s zone.

According to A, an official noted that at their current pace, the strike group is still at least a week away from the Iranian coast. This shift follows a recent flare-up where US forces downed an Iranian drone near the USS Lincoln, shortly after Iran attempted to intercept a US vessel in the Strait of Hormuz.

Arab nations along the Gulf have cautioned that any strike could escalate into a broader regional conflict, as the Middle East continues to deal with the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war.

The Trump administration is pushing for an agreement that would curb Iran’s nuclear activities and prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Tehran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful and has refused to stop enriching uranium domestically or surrender its stockpile of highly enriched material.

Negotiations between Washington and Tehran had been underway for months before Israel initiated a 12-day conflict with Iran in June, which brought the talks to a halt. During that fighting, the US carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, likely destroying numerous centrifuges used to enrich uranium close to weapons-grade levels. Israeli attacks also severely weakened Iran’s air defence systems and struck parts of its ballistic missile capabilities.

Prior to the June conflict, Iran had enriched uranium to 60 per cent purity, technically just a short step away from weapons-grade material.