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

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 defence identification zone over the East China Sea, which Washington rejected.