A US submarine has sunk an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said, touting the strike as evidence of America’s global reach in its war on Iran.
“An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” Hegseth told a news conference.
Sri Lankan authorities said they had rescued 32 crew members from the frigate IRIS Dena but that 148 other sailors were missing, with hopes low that any more would be found.
Hegseth called the attack “quiet death”, while top US officer General Dan Caine said it was the first US submarine to sink an enemy ship since World War II.
The Pentagon says one of the main aims of the US-Israeli war against Iran, launched on ,Saturday, is to wipe out the country’s navy.
Caine said the United States has destroyed more than 20 Iranian navy vessels, and has “effectively neutralised, at this point in time, Iran’s major naval presence in theatre”.
Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, Vijitha Herath, told Parliament that the rescued Iranians were rushed to the main hospital in the island’s south while two navy craft and a plane were deployed to search for others.
The frigate issued a distress call at dawn on Wednesday and within less than an hour, a rescue vessel reached the area about 40km south of the southern port of Galle, the minister said.
The frigate had sunk and only an oil patch remained when the navy rescue boats approached.
“We are keeping up a search, but we don’t know yet what happened to the rest of the crew,” a Sri Lankan defence official told AFP.
Sri Lankan navy spokesman Buddhika Sampath said their operation was in line with Sri Lanka’s 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.
“We have found a few bodies from the area where the ship had gone down,” Sampath said.
Sri Lanka has remained neutral and repeatedly urged dialogue to resolve the conflict in the Mideast.
Just over a million Sri Lankans are employed in the Middle East and they are a key source of foreign exchange for the country emerging from its worst economic meltdown in 2022.
Both Sri Lanka’s navy and the air force said they were not releasing footage of the rescue because it involved the military of another state.
Police stepped up security outside the Galle hospital as the wounded Iranians were brought there by the local navy.
The Iranian Ambassador in Colombo, Alireza Delkhosh, was not immediately available for comment.
- Agence France-Presse