Navy Commander Walsh: US Gulf buildup result of Iranian 'provocations'

A strike group led by the USS Bataan has joined the carriers Stennis and Eisenhower in the Persian Gulf

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) - Iran has brought its war games maneuvers over the past year into busy shipping lanes in the Straits of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which two-fifths of the world's oil supplies pass, the top U.S. Navy commander in the Mideast said.

The moves have alarmed U.S. officials about possible accidental confrontations that could boil over into war, and led to a recent build-up of Navy forces in the Gulf, said Vice Adm. Patrick Walsh in an interview with The Associated Press and other reporters.

During maneuvers, Iranian sailors have loaded mines onto small minelaying boats and test-fired a Shahab-3 ballistic missile into international waters, he said.

"The Shahab-3 most recently went into waters very close to the traffic separation scheme in the straits themselves. This gives us concern because innocent passage of vessels now is threatened," Walsh said in the interview Monday on the base of the Navy's Fifth Fleet in the tiny Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain.

Iran tested the Shahab during maneuvers in November, which it said were in response to U.S. maneuvers in the Gulf it called "adventurist." Iran also showed off an array of new torpedoes in war games in April...

The Navy has grown increasingly alarmed at what Walsh called Iran's "provocations."

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