WASHINGTON: At least 80 people were killed after a US submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka’s deputy foreign minister told local television, as Washington confirmed it had carried out the strike.
US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said at a Pentagon briefing that an American submarine had sunk “an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters”.
“Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” Hegseth told reporters, calling it the first time since World War Two that a US submarine had sunk an enemy ship in this way.
He did not name the vessel. Earlier, Sri Lanka’s navy said it had received a distress call from the Iranian navy ship IRIS Dena, which later sank about 40 kilometres south of the island nation.
Sri Lanka’s deputy foreign minister told local television that at least 80 people were killed in the strike.
A Sri Lankan navy spokesperson said the ship’s documentation indicated around 180 crew members were on board.
The Sri Lankan Navy rescued 32 critically injured sailors after receiving the distress call at dawn.
If the casualty figures provided by the deputy foreign minister and the navy are confirmed, around 68 people remain unaccounted for.
Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath told parliament that the rescued sailors had been transported to a hospital in Galle, 115 kilometres south of Colombo.
Police increased security at the facility following their arrival.
A defence official told AFP that hopes of finding further survivors were diminishing.
“We are keeping up a search, but we don’t know yet what happened to the rest of the crew,” the official said.
Sri Lanka deployed two naval vessels and an aircraft for the rescue operation.
Navy spokesman Buddhika Sampath said the country was fulfilling its international obligations within its designated search and rescue area in the Indian Ocean.
“We responded to the distress call under our international obligations, as this is within our search and rescue area,” Sampath told AFP.
The cause of the sinking was not immediately confirmed by Sri Lankan authorities.
In parliament, an opposition lawmaker questioned whether the vessel had been bombed amid ongoing US-Israeli operations against Iran.
Pentagon vows further action
At the Pentagon, Hegseth described the results of US operations over the past four days as “incredible, historic really”.
“They are toast, and they know it,” he said, referring to Iran’s leadership.
“This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it’s not a fair fight,” he added. “More and larger waves are coming. We are just getting started.”
Hegseth said US forces would now “begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory”, echoing comments from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine, who appeared alongside him.
He dismissed Russia and China as non-factors in Washington’s decision-making on Iran.
“I don’t have a message for them, and they’re not really a factor here, and our issue is not with them,” he said, adding that the US focus was on ending what he called Iran’s “nuclear ambitions”.
Moscow and Beijing have criticised US-Israeli military actions.
School strike under investigation
Asked about the reported bombing of a girls’ school in Minab in southern Iran, which Iranian authorities say killed at least 153 people including many children, Hegseth said the United States was investigating.
“All I can say is that we’re investigating that,” he said. “We of course never target civilian targets but we’re taking a look and investigating that.”
Pressed on whether there was clarity about whose munition struck the school, he repeated that the matter was under investigation.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force said it had dropped more than 5,000 munitions on Iran since the conflict began on Saturday, with a particular emphasis on the Tehran area.
In a statement on social media, the Israel Defence Forces said it had identified missiles launched from Iran towards Israel and that defence systems were operating to intercept them.
A shelter notice issued to the public was later lifted.
