Hegseth: US submarine sank Iranian warship near Sri Lanka’s coast

The United States has executed a submarine torpedo attack that sank an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka’s southern coast, according to the U.S. secretary of defense.

Pete Hegseth confirmed that the United States was responsible for the lethal strike on an Iranian frigate that killed at least 80 people while it was sailing near the Sri Lankan shoreline.

“An American submarine sank an Iranian warship that believed it was safe in international waters,” Hegseth said, adding that the assault was carried out by a U.S. Navy submarine late on Tuesday night.

“It was taken down by a torpedo, a silent demise – the first sinking of an enemy vessel by torpedo since World War II,” Hegseth noted. “Much like in that conflict, when we were still the War Department, we are fighting to win.”

Sri Lanka’s foreign affairs minister, Vijitha Herath, said the Sri Lankan coastguard received a distress call from the Iranian navy ship Iris Dena at 5:08 a.m. on Wednesday. Crew members described the event as an explosion.

“By 6 a.m. we dispatched one naval vessel and by 7 a.m. a second,” Herath said. He added that Sri Lanka was obliged to answer the call for assistance as a signatory to the international convention on maritime search and rescue.

The Iranian vessel was outside Sri Lanka’s territorial sea but within its exclusive economic zone, 44 nautical miles (81 km) off the southern city of Galle.

Sri Lankan officials confirmed that at least 80 people died in the attack. They said 32 crew members were rescued and taken to a hospital in Galle.

The strike occurs amid the ongoing Middle‑East conflict, after the United States and Israel carried out joint attacks on Iran over the weekend. The submarine action represents an escalation and is the first U.S. assault on Iran’s military outside the Middle East since the war began.

The Iris Dena was the newest frigate in Iran’s naval fleet, equipped with surface‑to‑air missiles, anti‑ship missiles, cannons, machine guns and torpedo launchers. The ship was likely passing Sri Lanka as it returned from the international fleet review hosted by the Indian navy last week.

Sri Lanka navy spokesperson Buddhika Sampath said rescue operations were ongoing and the primary aim of the effort was to “assist survivors.”

A senior Sri Lankan official told CuriosityNews that the Iranian embassy in Colombo had signaled through back‑channel contacts that it believed its ship had been targeted by a U.S. strike.

The official said the Iranians claimed the vessel’s defensive and counter‑attack systems were disabled by electromagnetic means before the torpedo hit. The Iranian government has not yet issued an official statement on the incident.

Another Sri Lankan defence source said the ship appeared to have been struck by two torpedoes that hit the midsection.

Rohan Gunaratna, a well‑connected Sri Lankan defence analyst, confirmed he had been informed that the vessel had been targeted by the United States.