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A U.S. submarine sank a warship with a torpedo off the southern coast of Sri Lanka, dramatically widening Washington’s pursuit of the Iranian navy.
Arun Hemachandra, Sri Lanka’s deputy foreign minister, identified the warship as the frigate IRIS Dena and said it was heading back to Iran from an eastern Indian port.
The attack happened hundreds of kilometres across the Indian Ocean from the Persian Gulf, where U.S. and Israeli forces are striking Iran and Tehran is retaliating with missile and drone attacks.
“An American submarine sank an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters,” U.S. War Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., on Wednesday. “Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Quiet death.”
WATCH | Hegseth describes the torpedo hit:
U.S. torpedoes Iranian warship in Indian Ocean
A U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship off the southern coast of Sri Lanka, U.S. War Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed at a Pentagon briefing. Sri Lankan Foreign Affairs Minister Vijitha Herath said 180 people were on-board the vessel. Of those, at least 87 have been killed, while more than 30 were rescued. CORRECTION (Mar. 4, 2026): An earlier version of this video showed Hegseth characterizing the incident as the first time since the Second World War that a submarine had sunk an enemy combatant ship with a torpedo. In fact, a British submarine sank the Argentinian ship Belgrano with torpedoes in 1982.
Hospital authorities in the Sri Lankan port city of Galle said 87 bodies were brought in by military rescuers who responded to an early morning distress call. Another 32 were rescued and were being treated at hospital and about 60 people were likely unaccounted for from an estimated 180 people on board, Sri Lankan authorities said.
A Pentagon video shared on social media purporting to have captured the attack showed the warship being hit by a huge explosion that blew apart the rear of the vessel, lifting it from the water and causing it to begin sinking from the stern.
The exact date when the video was filmed and the type of warship could not be verified. However, the deck shape and mast of the vessel in the video matched file imagery of the same type of warship as the IRIS Dena.
A ship named IRINS Dena was listed as taking part in a naval drill held in the Bay of Bengal from Feb. 18 to Feb. 25, according to the exercise’s website. IRIS — or Islamic Republic of Iran Ship — is the more commonly used prefix for Iranian naval vessels, while IRINS, for Islamic Republic of Iran Naval Ship, is sometimes used.
“I want to remind everyone that this is an incredible demonstration of America’s global reach to hunt, find and kill an out-of-area destroyer [and] is something that only the United States can do at this type of scale,” said Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Caine said the torpedo sent the ship “to the bottom of the sea.” Central Command said Wednesday that American forces have struck or sunk more than 20 Iranian ships since the conflict with Tehran began last week.
Just outside Sri Lankan waters
Sri Lanka said it had launched a search-and-rescue operation to locate survivors after receiving a distress call.
Sri Lankan navy spokesperson Cmdr. Buddhika Sampath said boats that reached the location observed only an oil slick, adding that although the incident took place outside Sri Lankan waters, Colombo was still committed to providing support.
“We found people floating in the water and rescued them,” Sampath told reporters. “Later on, we found upon inquiring that they belonged to the Iranian ship.”
Sri Lankan Navy media spokesperson Cmmdr. Buddhika Sampath speaks during a press conference at the Government Information Department in Colombo on March 4, after the rescue of people from the Iranian military ship Iris Dena, which was attacked by a submarine off the coast of Sri Lanka. (Akila Jayawardena)
Rescuers brought bodies, covered in white sheets, in batches in a truck to the Karapitiya hospital in Galle, where they were moved to the morgue.
The commander of the warship and some senior officers were among the survivors and they told the Sri Lankan navy that they were hit by a submarine attack, two Sri Lankan sources told Reuters.
The website of the “Milan” biennial multilateral naval exercise organized by India listed the IRINS Dena as having taken part in the drill, which was held in the Bay of Bengal off India’s eastern coast.
The Indian navy welcomed IRIS Dena “of the Iranian navy” upon its arrival in a Feb. 17 post on social media platform X.
An Indian navy spokesperson did not respond to Reuters for a request for comment after the Dena was sunk.