Second US aircraft carrier expected to arrive in Middle East in about week amid tensions with Iran: official

The second U.S. aircraft carrier strike group, USS Gerald R. Ford, is expected to arrive in the Middle East in about one week at the earliest amid tensions with Iran, said a U.S. official on Friday.

Also on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that the U.S. military would send a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East to prepare for a possible military action against Iran if negotiations fail.

Media reports cited two U.S. officials as saying that the military is preparing for the possibility of weeks-long military operation against Iran if Trump gives the order to attack.

The two officials said that, unlike the air strike against Iran's nuclear facilities in June last year, the preparations for this operation are more complex.

They said that if war breaks out, the U.S. military will broaden the targets to include the Iranian government and security agencies, and will also fully assess the scale of possible retaliatory actions by Iran.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has previously said that if the United States attacks Iran, Iran will strike U.S. military bases in the Middle East.

The United States and Iran held indirect talks on Feb 6 in the Omani capital Muscat and the next round of talks are scheduled to take place on Tuesday in Geneva, Switzerland. The U.S. delegation will be led by U.S. presidential special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Washington has said any deal with Iran must include a ban on nuclear weapon production, uranium enrichment, the removal of already enriched material, limits on long-range missiles, and a rollback of support for regional proxies.

Iran has maintained that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, but it must have the right to peacefully utilize nuclear energy.

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi has said that Iran's defensive and missile capabilities will never be the subject of any negotiation.

Second US aircraft carrier expected to arrive in Middle East in about week amid tensions with Iran: official

The U.S. military used an artificial intelligence model developed by American company Anthropic in its strike on Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolas Maduro on January 3, The Wall Street Journal and other U.S. media reported on Friday.

Citing sources of insiders, they reported that Anthropic's AI tool "Claude" was deployed during the raid, which involved airstrikes on multiple sites in the Venezuelan capital. But it remains unclear what specific role the AI model played in the operation, according to the reports.

Anthropic's usage policies explicitly prohibit Claude from being used to facilitate violence, develop weapons, or conduct surveillance. A company spokesperson declined to comment on whether Claude was used in any specific operation, classified or otherwise, stating that any use of the model must comply with the company's usage policies.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the operation.

U.S. military forces carried out a series of bombings in Caracas and other parts of Venezuela in the early hours of Jan. 3, forcibly seizing Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, before taking them away to the U.S. and putting them into custody in New York.

Venezuela's interior ministry reported that at least 100 people were killed and dozens injured in the U.S. attacks which shocked the international community and raised serious concerns worldwide.

US military used AI model in Venezuela raid