Military Ships

Iran on Wednesday accused the United States of fabricating video and audio released by the Pentagon that shows Iranian boats confronting U.S. warships near the Persian Gulf. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said that the "allegation is absurd, factually incorrect and reflects the lack of seriousness with which they take this serious incident." The video from Sunday's incident shows small Iranian boats swarming around the U.S. ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

A U.S. decision to dispatch a warship toward the Lebanese coast was denounced Friday by the Iranian- and Syrian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Bush administration officials said that positioning the destroyer Cole from the island of Malta farther east toward Lebanon was an attempt to bolster security in the Levant, which was the site of a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. "The purpose of the U.S.

A Russian anti-submarine destroyer and two logistical warships docked in Cuba in a nonmilitary visit Friday, the first of its kind since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The arrival was an extension of a tour that has included stops in Venezuela and Panama and shows Moscow's desire to flex some muscle in the United States' backyard after Washington supported the former Soviet republic of Georgia in its recent battle with Russia.

Chinese warships headed toward Somalia on Friday to combat piracy, the first time Beijing has sent its navy on a mission that could involve fighting so far beyond territorial waters. The deployment to the Gulf of Aden, which has been plagued by increasingly bold pirate attacks, is a major step in the navy's evolution from mostly guarding China's coasts to patrolling far from home. The move was welcomed by the U.S.

A second U.S. aircraft carrier group steaming toward the Middle East is Washington's way of warning Iran to back down in its attempts to dominate the region, a top U.S. diplomat said Tuesday. R. Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of State for political affairs, ruled out direct negotiations with Tehran and said rapprochement was "not possible" until Iran halted its uranium enrichment program.

The 1.6 million visitors a year to the USS Arizona Memorial are told by their guides about the legends surrounding the oil that still bubbles up from the sunken battleship. One legend holds that the oil represents the tears of the 900-plus sailors and Marines entombed below decks since the Japanese attack of Dec. 7, 1941. Another says the oil will continue to surface until the last Arizona survivor dies.

The Navy on Wednesday decommissioned the Ogden, a ship that had seen three wars and more than 40 years of service. The Austin-class amphibious transport dock, named after the city in Utah, was built in New York at the start of the Vietnam War. The vessel was commissioned in 1965 and was capable of launching assaults by sea and air. The San Diego-based ship carried Marines on two deployments to Vietnam and was sent to the Middle East for the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

With the boom of cannons, the Navy commissioned the U.S. transport ship New Orleans, the first time since at least World War II a Navy ship has been built and commissioned in its namesake city. "May God bless and guide this warship and all who sail on her," the secretary of the Navy, Donald C. Winter, said before hundreds of sailors in crisp, white uniforms ran onto the ship to set the traditional first watch and to salute the crowd below. The $1.

Britain's Royal Navy will resume boarding ships in the Persian Gulf, after having suspended the operations when 15 sailors and marines were taken prisoner by Iran, Defense Secretary Des Browne said. Browne said the military had "taken measures ... to ensure the risk to boarding operations is minimized." The British personnel had just finished searching a merchant ship March 23 when they were intercepted. They were released after nearly two weeks in captivity.

The explosives-laden wreck of a World War II torpedo boat has risen from the Pacific Ocean off the Solomon Islands, pushed above the water by a powerful earthquake, an official said Friday. The boat was exposed when reefs rose 10 feet above sea level during a magnitude 8.1 quake that caused a tsunami early this month, killing 52 people, said Jay Waura of the Solomons' National Disaster Management Office.