Iran claims Revolutionary Guards drones hit US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln

The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (File photo)

• Iran claims drones hit USS Abraham Lincoln, details unverified
• Trump supports Iranian Kurdish fighters' offensive into Iran
• Tehran tightens security, internet blackout amid US-Israel war

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Iranian state TV said Thursday that drones fired by the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the Islamic republic's military, had struck the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

State television did not provide any details on the claim. The Guards had previously alleged to have hit the US carrier, but the Pentagon said at the time that the "missiles launched didn't even come close".

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said Thursday he would approve of an offensive by Iranian Kurdish fighters into Iran in support of the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic.

"I think it's wonderful that they want to do that, I'd be all for it," Trump said in an interview with news agency Reuters.

Trump declined to say if the United States would provide air cover to Kurdish forces.

Since the United States and Israel launched the war on Saturday, Iran has been striking Iranian Kurdish groups based in autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan whom Tehran accuses of serving Western and Israeli interests.

Several Iranian Kurdish groups back fighting for greater autonomy within Iran, angering the Islamic republic but also many opponents, including monarchists who insist on territorial integrity.

While Kurds have historically had less friction with the Iranian state than their brethren in Iraq, Turkey and Syria, Iranian Kurds form some of Iran's rare armed and organized opposition groups.

Experts say they could potentially help special forces infiltrate and destabilize Iran.

War has emptied the usually traffic-jammedstreets of Iran's capital, but Islamic republic authorities have filled them with checkpoints and security forces as they tighten their grip on the population.

After the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran on Saturday, killing its supreme leader and urging Iranians to "take over" their government, celebrations at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's death were quickly stifled.

Iranians have since found themselves caught between the bombs and their government as authorities deploy heavy security and cut off the population from the outside world with an internet blackout.

The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) "has closed almost every main street with armed personnel and heavy machine guns to frighten people", a 30-year-old Tehran resident told AFP from Paris.

"The people are the real enemy in their eyes, not the Americans. Their extremists say first you have to deal with the enemy at home."

The public show of force appears intended to avoid any repeat of anti-government demonstrations that peaked in January and saw the streets stained with the blood of protesters who had chanted "death to Khamenei" in their thousands.

The nationwide protests were met with a fierce crackdown that left more than 7,000 people dead, according to the US-based group Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), which notes the actual toll is likely much higher. More than 50,000 have been arrested, it says.