US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth has declared that an American submarine sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, describing how the vessel met what he called a “quiet death” after being struck by a torpedo on Tuesday.
Although Hegseth did not name the ship, his announcement came shortly after Sri Lankan officials revealed that their navy had responded to a distress call from an Iranian destroyer, the Iris Dena, which went down about 40km off the island’s southern coastline on Wednesday morning.
Sri Lankan officials said 80 bodies were recovered from the vessel, while the Sri Lankan navy confirmed that 32 survivors had been rescued. According to a navy spokesman, documentation indicated that approximately 180 people had been on board at the time of the incident. The survivors were said to be seriously injured and were transported to a hospital in the southern port city of Galle, Foreign Affairs Minister Vijitha Herath confirmed.
Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Hegseth asserted that the Iranian warship had believed it was safe in international waters before being targeted. He further claimed that it marked “the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War Two”. While it is the first time since 1945 that a US submarine has sunk an enemy vessel in such a manner, both the United Kingdom and Pakistan have used torpedoes to sink ships in the intervening decades.
Video footage released by the US Department of Defense appeared to show a ship being struck, its stern lifting from the water before a large explosion tore through the vessel.
Earlier, however, Sri Lankan navy spokesman Budhika Sampath had rejected reports that the Iris Dena had been attacked by a submarine. He said that when rescue operations commenced, no vessel was visible at the site, nor were other ships observed in the vicinity. Instead, rescuers saw oil slicks and life rafts floating on the water.
Though the vessel’s last known position was beyond Sri Lanka’s territorial waters, Sampath explained that it fell within the country’s designated search and rescue region.
Launched in 2015, the Iris Dena is a destroyer attached to Iran’s Southern Fleet, tasked with deployments in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. The vessel had recently participated in International Fleet Review 2026, a naval exercise hosted by India.
The sinking comes amid intensifying hostilities in the Middle East. The United States and Israel have continued air strikes on Iran for a fifth consecutive day, with the Israeli military stating that it had targeted security headquarters across Tehran on Wednesday. Israel has also carried out strikes in Lebanon and deployed ground forces to the south of the country following rocket and drone attacks launched by Hezbollah.
Iran, for its part, appears to have sustained retaliatory operations. New strikes were reported in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on Wednesday, while Turkey announced that “Nato defences” had intercepted an Iranian missile heading towards Turkish territory.
Sri Lanka has maintained a position of neutrality throughout the escalating conflict, calling for restraint and immediate de-escalation from all parties involved. Nevertheless, Foreign Affairs Minister Vijitha Herath paid tribute to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, following his assassination on Saturday.
A government spokesman later clarified that Sri Lanka would issue a formal message of condolence for all those who had lost their lives in the conflict, including Iranian state leaders and officials.