(AP) The official IRNA news agency says Iran's top leadership has given full powers to the elite Revolutionary Guards as the sole military force in charge of defending the country's territorial Persian Gulf waters.
The decision represents a hardening of Iran's position by giving sole responsibility to the hard-line Guards in the strategic waterway.
Iranian and U.S. boats had a series of confrontations in the narrow Gulf last winter. At the time, high-ranking U.S. naval officials said they had long coordinated ship movements easily with Iran's navy in the Gulf, but had found Revolutionary Guards-manned boats to be more confrontational.
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