(CNN) Sen. Angus King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is giving credibility to the Trump administration's claims of heightened Iranian activity, but he says he worries about who is provoking whom in the "volatile" situation.

"I don't think there's faulty intel here necessarily. I think the intel may be accurate," Maine's King said Thursday on CNN's "New Day" during an interview with Alisyn Camerota. "But the unanswered question again is, are they reacting to our assertions of action in the Middle East or are we reacting to them? That's an unanswered question for me."

CNN first reported last week on US intelligence showing Iran moving short-range ballistic missiles aboard boats in the Persian Gulf — and that intelligence was one of the critical reasons the US decided to move an aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers into the region.

King said he reviewed some of the intelligence on Tuesday but has not seen the photographs, reported by the New York Times , of the boats in the Persian Gulf containing Iranian missiles, which led to the White House escalating its warnings about Iran.

While he said he can't reveal what he's reviewed in a classified briefing, King told CNN that "a lot of public reporting about heightened Iranian activity in the region, particularly in Iraq" is "accurate."

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