Iranian state TV airs video of boats' confrontation with US ships in Gulf

Iranian state TV aired video Thursday purporting to show a weekend standoff between small Iranian boats and U.S. naval ships in the Persian Gulf.

The grainy 5-minute, 20-second video _ without sound or narration _ showed a man speaking into a handheld radio, with three U.S. ships floating in the distance. It appeared to be shot from a small boat bobbing at least 100 meters (yards) from the American vessels.

The footage did not show any Iranian boats approaching the U.S. ships, nor any provocation. But the short clip likely did not show Sunday's entire encounter, which U.S. Navy officials have said lasted about 20 minutes.

It aired on Iran's state-run English-language channel Press TV, whose signal is often blocked inside the Islamic state.

The Pentagon has released its own video of Sunday's incident, showing small Iranian boats swarming around U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz.

In the recording, a man speaking in heavily accented English threatened, "I am coming to you. ... You will explode after ... minutes."

The incident, which ended without any shots fired, has heightened U.S.-Iranian tension as U.S. President George W. Bush visits the region. Bush was in the West Bank on Thursday, and heads next to Arab Gulf nations where he is expected to discuss strategy for confronting Iran.

Iran has denied its boats threatened the U.S. vessels, and accused Washington of fabricating its video. The Pentagon dismissed that claim and warned its ships would respond with force if threatened.