Washington and London have deployed more than 40 warships in the Gulf region as they prepare military retaliation for the terror attacks in the US, the state IRNA news agency reported Sunday.
"Forty-one American and British warships are present in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman," said Rear-Admiral Hamid Valamanesh, a navy commander in Iran's southern Sistan Baluchistan province.
"Twenty-one of these ships are located between the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, and 20 others are near the Gulf of Oman," he said.
"The Islamic republic's [Iran's] navy is observing their activities night and day," Valamanesh added.
According to Valamanesh, two US aircraft carriers are currently located in waters off Pakistan.
Washington and London have stepped up their sizeable forces already in the Middle East as they prepare military steps against Afghanistan for reportedly sheltering Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the anti-US terror attacks of September 11.
A spokeswoman for the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet, contacted by AFP, said she could give "no information on operations in current conditions".
A convoy of British warships passed through the Suez Canal a week ago headed for military maneuvers in Oman that were planned before the attack on the United States.
Around 38,000 soldiers, more than 20,000 of them British, are to take part in the mid-October wargames in Oman -- TEHRAN (AFP)
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