US Submarine Sinks Iranian Warship In Indian Ocean; Sri Lanka Says 87 Bodies Recovered

New Delhi: A US submarine torpedoed and sunk an Iranian warship off the southern coast of Sri Lanka, defence secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday (March 4), referring to the IRIS Dena that had attended a maritime exercise in Visakhapatnam just days prior. The conflict broke out on February 28 with the US and Israel launching attacks on Iran, which has since seen retaliatory actions. The death toll in Iran has reportedly surpassed 1,000. 

Earlier in the day, Sri Lankan foreign minister Vijitha Herath told parliament in Kotte that the country received a distress signal early in the morning from the Dena, which had 180 personnel aboard and was near the island nation's maritime border near Galle, following which sailors and pilots were despatched in a rescue mission.

Sri Lanka's Navy later said that 32 people who were injured were rescued and taken to hospital, with spokesperson Commander Buddhika Sampath saying the Dena “was not visible when we reached the location”. “We only saw the life rafts,” the Sri Lankan outlet News1st quoted him as saying.

In the evening it said it had recovered 87 bodies, the AP reported. AFP wrote citing police and defence officials that 61 others remained missing.

Addressing a press briefing at the Pentagon amid the conflict between Iran on the one hand and the US and Israel on the other, Hegseth said on Wednesday morning local time that a US submarine had attacked the Iranian vessel.

“… Yesterday, in the Indian Ocean … an American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” said Hegseth, adding that the incident marked the first time an enemy ship had been sunk by a torpedo since World War II.

Shortly afterwards his department released footage of the Dena coming undone in the attack.

Days prior, the Iranian frigate had on February 17 docked in Visakhapatnam for the Indian Eastern Naval Command's flagship maritime exercise ‘MILAN’.

Although external affairs minister S. Jaishankar spoke to his Iranian opposite number Abbas Araghchi on the first day of the US-Israeli attacks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not known to have condemned the offensive or spoken to his counterparts in Iran including after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's killing – and neither has he publicly condoled the supreme leader's death.

However, Modi has condemned, without naming Tehran, its attacks on various Gulf countries in conversations with their leaders.

Noting the sinking of the Dena, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate wrote on X: “Sri Lanka aids rescue. But what is India doing? Where is our regional clout?”

The Dena is one of Iran’s newest warships. The frigate was the centrepiece of a two-ship international tour in 2023 that included port calls in countries including South Africa and Brazil. It was accompanied by the support ship IRIS Makran, a converted oil tanker.

The US treasury department included both ships on a sanctions designation in February 2023 along with eight executives of an Iranian drone manufacturer that allegedly supplied weapons to Russia for use against civilian targets in Ukraine.

With inputs from AP.

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