US reveals new Iran 'incidents'

BBC

Iranian speedboats approached US warships in two previously undisclosed incidents in the Strait of Hormuz in December, a US Navy official has said.

The USS Whidbey Island fired warning shots during one of the encounters on 19 December, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He also described a third stand-off on 6 January - that sparked US protests - as the most serious incident.

Iran has accused the US of faking its video of the most recent encounter.

'Radio threat'

The US official said the USS Whidbey Island had to act in response to an Iranian boat that was rapidly approaching the amphibious warship on 19 December.

"One small [Iranian] craft was coming toward it, and it stopped after the Whidbey Island fired warning shots," the official was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

In the second incident on 22 December, the USS Carr, a guided missile frigate, encountered three small Iranian boats, said the official.

He said that the US vessel blew warning whistles, causing the boats to turn around.

His comments came shortly after Washington had sent Iran a formal protest over the stand-off on 6 January.

New US video

Pentagon officials have said the five speedboats came within about 200m (650ft) of the US vessels.

The US military have said video and audio that it released confirmed its allegation that Iranian speedboats harassed US vessels and threatened to blow them up in a radio communication.

However, senior US navy sources later told the BBC that the alleged threat to blow up the warships "may not have come" from Iranian speedboats.

Iran has rejected Washington's allegations, issuing its own video footage of the incident.

On Friday, the US authorities released what it said was the entire unedited footage of the incident.

Although some images in this longer version - lasting more than 30 minutes - are not very clear, they do not appear to show anything very different from what was already seen in the extract of some five minutes already released, the BBC's Vincent Dowd in Washington says.

The audio track is present throughout and very short exchanges of dialogue can be heard on the bridge of the USS Hopper, the destroyer from which the pictures were taken, our correspondent says.

He says the latest video does not shed more light on the origin of the voice hear on tape which initially the Pentagon came from one of the speedboats.

The confrontation has further inflamed long-running tensions between Iran and the United States.