The U.S. Navy has been warned: Iran claims to possess a terrifying “secret new weapon” that will send American warships “to the bottom of the sea along with their crew and planes.”

“America… is sending two warships to the region,” General Morteza Qorbani, an adviser to military command, told semi-official news agency Mizan in comments translated by Reuters. “If they commit the slightest stupidity, we will send these ships to the bottom of the sea along with their crew and planes using two missiles or two new secret weapons.”

Another senior commander, General Hassan Seifi, backed up the threat, claiming Iran is so powerful the U.S. would never initiate a first strike against the Islamic republic. He said, “rational Americans and their experienced commanders will not let their radical elements lead them into a situation from which it would be very difficult to get out, and that is why they will not enter a war.”

Iran’s rhetoric comes after the U.S. confirmed it will send hundreds of additional troops and a dozen fighter jets to the Middle East in the coming weeks to counter what the Pentagon said is an escalating campaign by Iran to plan attacks against the U.S. and its interests in the region.

President Donald Trump told reporters Friday the 1,500 new troops would have a “mostly protective” role as part of a build-up that began this month in response to what the U.S said was a threat from Iran.

The announcement caps three weeks of elevated regional tensions.

﻿

As Breitbart News reported, Iran last week warned U.S. forces for the third time in 72 hours to cease any further advance into the Persian Gulf, predicting catastrophic outcomes if they do not retreat.

An Iranian cleric first cautioned the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group now gathering in the region could be destroyed with ease.

“Their billion [-dollar] fleet can be destroyed with one missile,” Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai Nejad was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency after Friday prayers in Isfahan, according to Reuters.

This was followed by a second warning when a top commander in Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the United States “wouldn’t dare to launch military action against us” and cautioned of a fiery response if that happened.

Yadollah Javani, the IRGC’s deputy head for political affairs, spoke after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened a “swift and decisive” response to any attack by Iran.

The U.S. has about 70,000 troops across the Middle East, including at a major Navy base in Bahrain and an Air Force base and operations center in Qatar. There are about 5,200 troops in Iraq and 2,000 in Syria.