87 bodies found off Sri Lanka; Iran Claims Control of Strait of Hormuz; Turkey says missile destroyed by NATO
This image from a video released by the US Department of Defense shows what it says is periscope footage of a US Navy submarine firing on and sinking an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean. Photo: AFP
GALLE/WASHINGTON:
A US submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday, killing at least 87 sailors and dramatically widening a regional conflict now in its fifth day as fighting raged from the Gulf to Jerusalem and southern Lebanon.
Sri Lankan authorities said dozens of bodies had been recovered after the frigate IRIS Dena went down about 40 kilometers south of the port of Galle. Hospital officials in the southern city confirmed that 87 bodies were brought ashore, while 32 crew members were rescued and treated.
About 60 to more than 100 sailors remain unaccounted for out of an estimated 180 on board. “We have collected 87 bodies and a search is still on for the others who are still missing,” a Sri Lankan navy official told AFP.
Another defense official said rescuers found only an oil slick when they reached the site. “We found people floating in the water and rescued them,” Navy spokesman Commander Buddhika Sampath said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the attack, declaring at the Pentagon: “A U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Silent death.”
The Pentagon said it was the first time since World War II that a US submarine had sunk an enemy ship. General Dan Caine, the top US military officer, said Washington had destroyed more than 20 Iranian naval vessels since the war began on Saturday.
Operatives from Iran’s intelligence ministry also signaled openness to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to talks to end the war, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing officials briefed on the matter.
The offer was made through an unnamed country’s spy agency, the NYT said, citing Middle Eastern officials and officials from a Western nation who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The White House and the CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Officials in Washington are skeptical that Iran or the Trump administration is really ready for an “off-ramp,” at least in the short term, the report added.
Strait of Hormuz
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday they were in total control of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global energy transit, as Israel launched a new wave of attacks on the Iranian capital.
In Lebanon, the Israeli military asked residents south of the Litani River to move north, warning that the army was “forced to take military action” against Hezbollah in the area.
Governments around the world scrambled to evacuate citizens stranded by war in the Middle East, where Iran expanded a missile and drone barrage on the fifth day of a war that sent global stocks sinking.
The war, triggered by a US-Israeli strike that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has seen Iran lash out with missile and drone strikes from Israel across the Gulf, and has also attracted Tehran’s proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Cities such as Dubai and Riyadh, which have long prided themselves on their security against the turmoil in the region, have been drawn in, with the growing chaos sparing few countries in Iran’s vicinity.
A ballistic missile launched from Iran bound for Turkish airspace through Iraq and Syria has been destroyed by NATO air defense systems, Turkish officials said on Wednesday.
With energy prices already rising, President Donald Trump had said the US Navy was ready to escort oil tankers through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier, the Revolutionary Guard warned ships against entering the strait and major shipping lines have already suspended transit through the waterway with maritime agencies reporting several ships attacked.
A ballistic missile launched from Iran and headed for Turkish airspace via Iraq and Syria was destroyed by NATO air defense systems, Turkish officials said on Wednesday.
The Ministry of Defense said it had been “engaged and neutralized by NATO air and missile defense assets deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean”.
It did not specify the missile’s intended target. Iran has hit sites across the region in retaliation after the US and Israel launched strikes against it on Saturday.
A Turkish official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the missile was “aimed at a base in Greek Cyprus but had veered off course”.
Officials said fragments that fell in the Dortyol district of southern Turkey, near the Syrian border, had been identified as pieces of the interceptor used to neutralize the “threat in the air”.
Qatar
Qatar’s prime minister condemned Iran’s attacks on Gulf states in a call with Tehran’s foreign minister on Wednesday, the first high-level contact since the Islamic republic launched its missile and drone campaign.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani accused Iran of trying to “harm its neighbors and drag them into a war that is not theirs” on the call with Iran’s Abbas Araghchi, according to a statement from Qatar’s foreign ministry.
Gulf countries have borne much of Tehran’s response since the US and Israel launched a massive air campaign against Iran over the weekend, with an 11-year-old girl killed in Kuwait on Wednesday by falling shrapnel.
Thirteen people, including seven civilians, have been killed in countries around the Gulf since the war began.
The Pentagon has announced the deaths of six US soldiers since Saturday, four of them in Kuwait.
Qatar’s prime minister called for “an immediate halt to these attacks” on the call, saying Iran had “hit civilians and residential areas” despite Araghchi’s claim “the Iranian missile attacks were aimed at US interests and were not aimed at the State of Qatar”.
“These attacks cannot pass without a response,” Sheikh Mohammed added.
Kuwait’s health ministry said “resuscitation was carried out in the ambulance while the girl was transported to the hospital,” adding attempts continued for nearly half an hour at Al-Amiri Hospital, but she “died from her injuries.”
The UAE and Qatar said they had intercepted Iranian drone and missile barrages, with the UAE reporting that it engaged three ballistic missiles and intercepted 121 out of 129 drones, while Qatar said it shot down 10 drones and two cruise missiles.
Israeli missions
Iran’s armed forces threatened on Wednesday to target Israeli missions around the world if Israel attacked Tehran’s mission in Lebanon, a military spokesman said.
Abolfazl Shekarchi, the spokesman for the Iranian armed forces, said live on television that “if Israel commits such a crime, it will force us to make all Israeli embassies around the world our legitimate targets”.
On Tuesday, Avichay Adraee, an Arabic-language spokesman for the Israeli military, said it was “warning representatives of the Iranian terrorist regime still in Lebanon to leave immediately before they are targeted,” giving them 24 hours to leave.
