TEHRAN – The chief commander of the Navy announced on Tuesday that Iran will unveil for the first time a new type of combat helicopter and navy drones with a range of 2000 km.

Rear Admiral Shahram Irani said the Iranian Navy has achieved various achievements in terms of manufacturing equipment.

 He said these achievements include a new combat maritime helicopter and a maritime drone with a flight range of 2,000 km.

The commander made the remarks during a press conference held on the occasion of Navy Day. Irani also said the Navy will hold a hybrid drill in the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean in the coming days.

Commenting on the U.S. dispatching of dozens of unmanned surface vessels (USVs) to the Persian Gulf, Irani said, “These unmanned surface vessels have endangered the safety of navigation. And we had gathered these vessels in the past.

Since the United States vowed to gather these vessels, we released them.” He also said that the American vessels are a threat to commercial ships and oil tankers, according to Iran's state news agency IRNA.

In late August, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy detained and towed a U.S. vessel that seemed new to the maritime theater in the Persian Gulf.

The dhow-shaped vessel, known as Saildrone, was controlled and towed by the IRGC Navy with the purpose of ensuring the security of shipping routes and preventing a possible accident, according to Nour News, a website linked to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

Saildrone is an unmanned surface vessel (USV) developed by the United States to increase maritime surveillance in the troubled waters of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

The U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain alleged in a statement that it prevented Iran from “capturing” its USV. “The U.S. Navy prevented a support ship from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) from capturing an unmanned surface vessel operated by the U.S. 5th Fleet” in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. 5th Fleet said in a statement. A few days later, another encounter took place involving the American-operated USVs, this time in the Red Sea.

 On September 2, the Iranian Navy announced that it had detained and then released two USVs in the Red Sea. Footage of the incident released by Iran’s state TV showed that the Red Sea USVs were of the same type detained by the IRGC Navy in the Persian Gulf, ringing alarm bells about further encounters in the future.

Commenting on the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea incidents, Nour News said at the time that the U.S. USVs endangered commercial maritime security in the region.

“In continuation of the tension-causing behavior of the United States in West Asia, especially in the Persian Gulf, this country has sent unmanned reconnaissance vessels to international waters in the region in recent weeks,” it said.

This week, despite severe warnings from Tehran against foreign military presence in the Persian Gulf, the chief of United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said a U.S.-led task force would deploy over 100 unmanned vessels in the vital waterways of the Persian Gulf.

The deployment, according to General Michael Kurilla, would be finished by the end of the next year and is intended to fend off marine threats.

Kurilla, who was sanctioned by the Islamic Republic last month for supporting terrorism and inciting violence against the Iranian people during the recent riots, said, “By this time next year, Task Force 59 will bring together a fleet of over 100 unmanned surface and subsurface vessels operating together, communicating together and providing maritime domain awareness.”