The four-minute video broadcast by Iran's English language channel Press-TV showed an Iranian commander in a speedboat contacting an American sailor via radio, asking him to identify the US vessels and state their purpose.

"Coalition warship number 73, this is an Iranian patrol," the Iranian commander is heard to say in English, asking for the vessel to confirm its number.

"This is coalition warship number 73. I am operating in international waters," replied the American voice.

State-run Press-TV said the footage had been released by the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological force involved in the incident.

The Pentagon released a video and audio tape on Tuesday that it said confirmed US charges that Iranian speedboats swarmed around US warships in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday and radioed a threat to blow them up.

The alleged confrontation has further inflamed tensions between Iran and the United States which are locked in a standoff over Tehran's controversial nuclear drive.

The tape showed "warship number 73" -- the USS Port Royal-- looming in the foreground and also showed the two other US vessels in the incident, the USS Hopper and the USS Ingraham.

A helicopter was also shown hovering above the US ships.

"Request your present course and speed!" added the Iranian commander, who was wearing a yellow life-jacket and the kefiyeh scarf often sported by Iranian revolutionary forces.

The dialogue in the video was repetitive and sometimes technical, with the sides agreeing to switch from channel 16 to channel 11 on their radios.

However Iran clearly sees the release of the footage as buttressing its claims that the incident was purely a routine matter of identification that ended without any disturbance.

"Iran clearly just wanted to identify the vessels and find out what they were doing," concluded the Press-TV anchor.

The Revolutionary Guards had said the day earlier that the film released by the Pentagon was a "clumsy fake" where the sound and image were not properly synchronised.

The US video, which the Pentagon said was taken from the bridge of the USS Hopper, showed Iranian boats approaching the warships at high speeds and racing around its hull.

A man's voice is heard in an audio recording speaking in English, amid a sailor's urgent warnings to stay clear of the ship.

"I am coming to you... You will explode in a few minutes," the voice is heard to say.

The incident came just ahead of US President George W Bush's arrival yesterday in Israel, his first visit to Iran's arch regional foe as president, on a major Middle East trip that will also see him visit several Arab allies.