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- US submarine sinks Iranian warship, 87 dead as Israel strikes escalate in Middle East
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- Iranian warship sinks off Sri Lanka, 32 rescued and over 100 feared missing
- Not just oil and gas. War on Iran hurts supply chains from pharmaceuticals to semiconductors
- IDF strikes hundreds of targets in Iran, Lebanon; ‘We have just begun’, says US Central Command
- Iran crisis: No immediate oil disruption for India, Russia pivot possible if conflict drags on
US submarine sinks Iranian warship, 87 dead as Israel strikes escalate in Middle East
Public Lokpal
March 05, 2026
US submarine sinks Iranian warship, 87 dead as Israel strikes escalate in Middle East
New Delhi: A torpedo fired by a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka, whose navy said on Wednesday it had recovered 87 bodies and rescued 32 people.
The IRIS Dena had participated in an international naval exercise in India last month.
The Iranian vessel sunk in the Indian Ocean was the Islamic Republic’s “prize ship”, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said. It was one of the few instances of a submarine sinking a ship since World War II.
The sinking of the IRIS Dena illustrates a US-Israeli military operation against Iran’s military that is stretching beyond its borders. US President Donald Trump has said one of the key objectives of the war is to wipe out Iran’s navy.
“An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon news briefing. “Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo.”
US Central Command said in a statement on social media that it had “struck or sunk to the bottom of the ocean” more than 20 ships “from the Iranian regime”. It is the first assessment of the extent of naval damage by the military since CENTCOM last said it had destroyed one ship.
Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Vijitha Herath told Parliament that its navy received information that the IRIS Dena, with 180 people on board, was in distress and sinking. The island nation sent ships and planes on a rescue mission, he said.
Navy spokesman Commander Buddhika Sampath said by the time navy ships reached the location, there was no sign of the ship in distress and “there were only some oil patches and life rafts. We found people floating on the water.”
He said the 32 people rescued were admitted to a hospital in Galle, a town on Sri Lanka’s southern coast. The bodies recovered were also being brought to land, he said.
At the National Hospital in Galle, Iranian sailors’ bodies were arriving in trucks and being stored in a makeshift mortuary. The hospital was guarded by Sri Lankan police and naval personnel, as workers unloaded bodies away from view.
Dr Anil Jasinghe, a top health ministry official, said one of those rescued was in critical condition, seven were receiving emergency treatment and others were being treated for minor injuries.
The IRIS Dena — one of Iran’s newest warships — patrolled in deep water, and was armed with heavy guns, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles and torpedoes. It carried one helicopter.
The ship had been sanctioned by the US treasury department in February 2023, along with eight executives of an Iranian drone manufacturer that supplied weapons to Russia for use against civilian targets in Ukraine.
Qatar anger
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi told his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani that Iranian missile attacks were directed at US interests and not at Qatar.
Qatar’s top diplomat “categorically rejected” that claim and called for an immediate halt to Iran’s attacks, the Qatari foreign ministry said on X.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman said his country would confront any aggression with its “right to self-defence”, stressing that Doha had always been inclined towards dialogue and diplomacy conducted in good faith.
AP & agency
