Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said that the Islamic Republic intends to send a “fleet of warships” to the Atlantic Ocean, The Times of Israel reported Thursday, citing Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.

“Our warships will soon berth at ports in the Atlantic Ocean,” Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari promised at a ceremony on Wednesday marking the return to port of Iranian warships that Fars said had taken part in joint drills with the Russian navy.

Sayyari said the Iranian vessels had been in the Caspian Sea and at the Russian port of Astrakhan. “The presence of Iranian warships in international ports shows the Iranian Navy’s prowess,” Fars quoted him saying.

Sayyari made a similar pledge in 2014, but the deployment was delayed due to “a change in schedule,” according to the navy chief.

Earlier this year, Sayyari announced that Iran would send its vessels into the Red Sea and other international waters, raising concerns among America’s Arab allies about Iranian naval adventurism.

In April, Iran seized a Marshall Islands-flagged ship in violation of international law. The muted American response to the seizure raised concern among experts that the United States was allowing an Iranian threat to global shipping go unanswered.

In February, during a naval exercise, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) destroyed a replica of an American aircraft carrier. The exercise was broadcast on state television with the warning, “If the Americans are ready to be buried at the bottom of the waters of the Persian Gulf – so be it.”

Last year, Iranian state television aired a computer simulation depicting Iranian drone and missile strikes on Israel and the American aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.

[Photo: ali javid / YouTube ]