Iran dispatched a naval flotilla to the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, a move that could raise tensions between the Islamic Republic and a Saudi-led coalition conducting a military campaign in Yemen, which borders the waterway.

The Iranian 34th flotilla, which includes a destroyer and a logistics vessel, headed for the Gulf to protect Iranian and other countries’ trading vessels from piracy, according to a report on Iran’s ISNA news agency.

The flotilla would conduct missions there as well as in the Red Sea and the key Bab al-Mandeb shipping strait over a three-month deployment, the report said.

While the launch of the flotilla was described in routine terms, it comes as regional tensions fray over Yemen’s conflict. Saudi Arabia, which neighbors Yemen to the north and is Iran’s main regional rival, is leading a two-week-old campaign of airstrikes against the Shiite-linked Houthi militants in Yemen that aims to restore the country’s exiled president.

The militants overthrew Yemen’s government in February, forcing President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee.