Seven American sailors reportedly killed in shipboard brawl on USS Abraham Lincoln, Iranian media claims
USS Abraham Lincoln. (Photo: Wikimedia/US Navy)
New Delhi: Iranian state media have reported that seven American sailors were killed and several others wounded in a violent clash aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that has spent months enforcing Washington’s naval blockade against Iran. The claim, which has not been confirmed by the US Navy or any western outlet, points to simmering unrest among a crew stretched by one of the longest continuous carrier deployments in modern American naval history.
According to Mehr News, Press TV and West Asia News Agency (Wana), all citing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked Tasnim news agency, an unnamed military source said the trouble began when an adviser to General Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command (Centcom), boarded the USS Abraham Lincoln to address grievances that had been building among the crew. Families of personnel aboard the carrier had already gone public with their complaints over the ship’s prolonged time at sea. The adviser was reportedly heckled and pelted with water bottles as he addressed the assembled sailors and marines.
The confrontation is then said to have spiralled into a fight involving knives and other bladed weapons, leaving seven dead and a number wounded, Tasnim’s source told the agency. Mehr News, Press TV and Wana have all carried near-identical versions of the account, attributing it to the same military source relayed through Tasnim.
No confirmation from Washington
The Pentagon and the US Navy’s Third Fleet and Fifth Fleet have made no public statement addressing the alleged brawl at the time of writing. Given the source of the reports, and the total absence of corroboration from American, European or other independent media, the claim should be treated as unverified pending an official response from Washington.
Earlier claims from Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, that the carrier had withdrawn following an early encounter with Iranian missiles and drones was also never confirmed by the US side.
What is not in dispute is that the carrier’s deployment has been exceptionally long and increasingly strained. The carrier left San Diego on November 21, 2025, entered the Centcom area of operations in late January, and has since spent 263 days deployed, including 208 consecutive days at sea, broken only by a brief stop in Oman in July.
Iranian reports allege that meals aboard the carrier have been cut to as little as half a cup of rice and two pieces of meat, that laundry facilities have been out of order for two weeks, and that mould has spread through shower areas. These specific details cannot be independently verified, though they align with broader, separately reported concerns about conditions on board.
What US media is saying
Independent US reporting, notably by Navy Times, has documented a genuine crisis of morale aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, even without confirming any deadly clash. The carrier’s roughly 5,000 sailors and marines were originally expected home by May, but the deployment has since been extended with no announced return date.
Navy Times has reported multiple attempts by sailors to go overboard during the deployment, including one incident in which a shipmate on watch physically intervened to pull a sailor back from the edge. The Navy has not disclosed a precise figure for such incidents or for instances of self-harm aboard the ship.
Family frustration boiled over on August 6, when roughly 200 relatives confronted the acting secretary of the navy, Hung Cao, at a meeting in San Diego over the lack of a clear timeline for the crew’s return. A separate virtual meeting between navy leadership and family members that same night grew similarly heated, according to recordings reviewed by American broadcaster MS NOW.
Iranian outlets have drawn a parallel with an earlier, separately documented incident aboard the USS Gerald R Ford. On March 12, a fire broke out in living quarters housing around 600 crew members, injuring approximately 200 personnel; the injured were taken to a US naval facility on Crete before the carrier was forced to return to the United States for repairs.
The Lincoln, by contrast, is reported to be continuing its mission in the Arabian Sea despite the alleged unrest. Whether the latest claim of a deadly brawl holds up to scrutiny or turns out to be exaggerated will likely become clear only once Washington responds, or once independent journalists gain access to crew accounts.
