At least 85 Iranian sailors were killed after a US submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, with the Pentagon releasing footage of the moment the vessel was struck and sank.
The ship, identified as the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena, went down early Wednesday after being hit by a torpedo fired from a US submarine. The strike comes amid the escalating US-Israel military campaign against Iran.
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"An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo," US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters.
The Pentagon described the strike as part of its broader effort in the ongoing war against Iran and said it demonstrated Washington’s military reach across global waters.
Hegseth called the attack "quiet death" and the first US sinking of an enemy ship by torpedo since World War II.
"Like in that war," he said, "we are fighting to win."
Sri Lankan authorities said 32 sailors from the Iranian frigate were rescued after the vessel issued a distress call at dawn. However, officials said 148 other crew members remain missing and hopes of finding survivors are fading.
Sri Lanka's foreign minister Vijitha Herath told parliament that rescue vessels reached the site about 40 kilometres south of the southern port of Galle less than an hour after the distress call was received.
By the time rescuers arrived, the frigate had already sunk, leaving only an oil patch on the water’s surface.
"We are keeping up a search, but we don't know yet what happened to the rest of the crew," a Sri Lankan defense official told AFP.
Sri Lankan navy spokesman Buddhika Sampath said the navy responded as part of its maritime obligations.
"We responded to the distress call under our international obligations, as this is within our search and rescue area in the Indian Ocean," Sampath told AFP.
He added that bodies had already been recovered from the site of the sinking.
"We have found a few bodies from the area where the ship had gone down," Sampath.
Sri Lankan police later said that 87 bodies of Iranian sailors had been recovered as search operations continued in the waters off the southern coast.
Authorities said the rescued sailors were taken to a hospital in southern Sri Lanka while naval vessels and aircraft continued searching the area.
The frigate had earlier taken part in a military exercise near India’s Visakhapatnam before moving through the Indian Ocean, according to officials.
Sri Lanka has maintained a neutral stance in the widening conflict and has repeatedly called for dialogue to resolve the Middle East crisis.
