U.S. SAYS NO SIGNAL BEING SENT BY SHIP MOVEMENTS

  A U.S. Navy battle group led by the
  U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk is in the northern Arabian Sea
  amid renewed concern about the safety of shipping off the coast
  of Iran, U.S. officials said today.
      But Pentagon spokesman Fred Hoffmann said that reports the
  naval strike force was in the region did not mean the United
  States was sending a new warning to Iran against escalating
  attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf.
      "Nothing like that has happened," he said. "No signal is being
  sent."
      He said that the Kitty Hawk is operating in an area where
  it usually does. "It's normal. It's in the waters where it's
  supposed to be. It's been there for over a month."
      The Kitty Hawk and its force of warplanes is the mainstay
  of the U.S. Indian Ocean Battle Group which patrols a vast area
  extending from the Indian subcontinent through the Arabian Sea.
      With the Kitty Hawk and its group in the Arabian Sea to the
  south and the U.S. Mideast Task Force in the Persian Gulf to
  the north, the United States has 10 warships on either end of
  the strategic Straits of Hormuz.
      The Pentagon, as is its custom, declined to confirm the
  exact whereabouts of the ships or what they were up to.
      State Department officials cited concern about the safety
  of ships passing through the Straits on the vital oil supply
  run to the Gulf.
      Iran has conducted repeated attacks on shipping in the Gulf
  and U.S. officials have said that Teheran has recently equipped
  itself with powerful Chinese and Italian-made anti-ship
  missiles, posing a greater threat.
  

