The United States Navy said on Saturday that it had deployed a guided missile submarine to the Middle East, a day after the U.S. 5th Fleet and its partners released a warning advising all ships to proceed with caution following escalating tensions between Iran and Israel, according to a U.S. Navy spokesman.

U.S. Military and Israeli intelligence agencies said that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force was preparing a drone attack against Israeli-owned civilian merchant vessels sailing in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, according to two Western senior intelligence officials with knowledge of the threats who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

An Iranian political strategist close to the Guards said Iran was considering attacks on Israeli-owned ships in the region as one means of retaliating against Israeli airstrikes in Syria that killed two members of the Guards in March.

U.S. Officials said the deployment of the submarine, the U.S.S. Florida, was meant to deter Iran and maintain the stability of one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, in which millions of dollars in commercial goods, oil and gas are transported every day.

The Florida, which has the capacity to carry 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, entered the region on Thursday and began transiting the Suez Canal on Friday, according to a U.S. Navy spokesman.

“Recent events, including the strikes in Syria and public threats made by Iran against merchant vessels, prompted us to remind regional mariners to remain vigilant,” said Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain.

The public statement announcing the location and presence of the submarine was highly unusual because the U.S.  military does not typically acknowledge the presence of its submarines anywhere, unlike ships and planes, which can be tracked.

In another sign of tensions rising in the region, the Pentagon last week announced it was extending the tour of the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush in the eastern Mediterranean and speeding up the deployment of Air Force A-10 attack planes to a base in the Middle East.

Iran and Israel have been engaged in a yearlong shadow war that has extended to land, air, cyber and sea. They have been targeting one another’s ships in open waters since March 2021.

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