Beware Iran

The top US military officer warned Iran American warships would defend themselves, amid charges that Iranian speedboats have interfered with their passage through the Strait of Hormuz three times in the past month. The Pentagon, meanwhile, showed what it said was an unedited 36-minute videotape of the most recent incident on January 6 following Iranian charges that it had faked an earlier edited version that showed Iranian speedboats racing around US warships.

The United States has lodged an official protest over the January 6 incident, but its version of events has come under attack from Tehran which claimed that the Pentagon fabricated a four minute video clip of the encounter. The 36-minute version aired Friday included the material contained in the earlier version, plus extended and largely uneventful footage of Iranian boats following the US ships at some distance. It includes a shot of a dark object floating in the water, but it could not be determined whether this was one of the box-like objects that the Pentagon claims were dumped in the path of a US warship by two speedboats.