Iran must bear the consequences of any new confrontation between US and Iranian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, a senior US official warned on Wednesday.

Washington says Iranian boats aggressively approached three US Naval ships in the waterway, a major oil shipping route off Iran’s coast, and threatened that the ships would explode.

“This was a very provocative act by the Iranians and... came very close to resulting in an altercation between our forces and their forces,” said Stephen Hadley, President George W Bush’s National Security Advisor.

“They’ve got to be very careful about this because if it happens again they are going to bear the consequences,” Hadley told reporters, travelling with Bush on his first official visit to Israel.

“...It’s the kind of incident that can provoke exchange of fire and we think the Iranians need to be on notice that they are fishing in troubled waters here,” Hadley said.

The US released a video of the weekend incident, including a recording of what it said was the exchange between the two sides. Iran rejected the footage as fake and accused Washington of trying to stir up tension in the region.

“America aims to implement this plan saying Iran has been and is the source of fear in West Asia,” Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar was quoted by state television as saying.

“Iranian craft always ask other ships to identify themselves and this is what they did to the American ships. American ships answered and that was it.”

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