Bodies of Iranian sailors are taken out of a van and moved to the mortuary at Karapitiya Hospital after a submarine attack on the Iranian military ship Iris Dena off Sri Lanka, in Galle, Sri Lanka
| Photo Credit:
Thilina Kaluthotage
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told a media conference in Washington DC that a US submarine sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean.
“An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” Hegseth said, terming it a “quiet death” and the “first sinking of an enemy ship” by a torpedo since World War II. “Like in that war,” he said, “we are fighting to win”.
Meanwhile, The Sri Lankan Navy on Wednesday rescued 32 sailors and recovered 87 bodies, following a distress call from the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena, which sank some 40 nautical miles off Galle on the island’s southern coast, authorities said.
The development came to light when Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath informed Parliament on Wednesday, of the distress call at dawn (05.08 hours IST) from the frigate.
Sri Lanka responded swiftly, owing to its obligations under the ‘International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue’, Herath said. “By 6 am we dispatched a naval vessel and by 7 am the second naval vessel,” he told the House. The injured sailors were taken to a state-run hospital in the southern Galle district.
According to Sri Lankan navy spokesman Buddhika Sampath, the vessel was not visible when the rescuers reached the spot. The Navy is yet to probe the cause for the distress call, and is currently “focused on search and rescue operations”, he further said. “As of now we have recovered 87 bodies,” he told The Hindu at 8.45 pm.
Fleet Review 2026
IRIS Dena was returning after participating in the ‘International Fleet Review 2026’, a global maritime exercise, held in Visakhapatanam in February. A total of 71 warships were part of the Fleet Review, including 19 foreign vessels. Naval sources told The Hindu that while the capacity of IRIS Dena was nearly 180, around 140 persons were believed to be on board at the time of the incident. An official confirmation on the size of the crew is awaited.
When contacted, Iranian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Alireza Delkhosh, who was on his way from Colombo to Galle, told The Hindu : “We have no information yet on the cause, we are in close contact with Sri Lankan authorities. I am on my way to see the survivors.”
Sri Lanka has not commented on the US claiming responsibility for the torpedo attack on the Iranian vessel. Days after the US-Israel combine launched an attack on Iran on February 28, 2026, triggering a wider war in the West Asian region, Sri Lanka expressed “deep concern over the rapid escalation of hostilities” and called on “all concerned parties to exercise maximum restraint and to take immediate and decisive action to de-escalate tensions”.
Meera Srinivasan is The Hindu correspondent in Colombo
Published on March 4, 2026