WASHINGTON - The US military carried out freedom of navigation operations challenging the maritime claims of China, Iran and 10 other nations last year, asserting its right to use the seas in defiance of their restrictions, a Pentagon report said Thursday.

The Defense Department's annual Freedom of Navigation Report to Congress for the 2013 fiscal year showed the US military targeted not only countries such as Iran, with whom it has no formal relations, but treaty allies like the Philippines, too.

The US military conducted multiple operations targeting China over what Washington believes are "excessive" claims about its maritime boundaries and its effort to force foreign warships to obtain permission before peacefully transiting its territorial seas.

US operations challenged Iran for trying to restrict the use of the Strait of Hormuz to ships from countries that have signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, an accord the United States has not formally adopted but treats as generally accepted customary law.

The report covers activity in the 2013 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, before the latest tensions over an incident between US and Chinese warships in the South China Sea and Beijing's declaration of an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea, which Washington rejected.

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US Freedom of Navigation ops in 2013 targeted PHL, China, Iran