87 bodies recovered off Sri Lanka; Iran claims control of the Strait of Hormuz; Türkiye says missile was destroyed by NATO
This frame grab from a video released by the US Department of Defense shows what it claims to be 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 already in its fifth day, as fighting spread from the Gulf to Jerusalem and southern Lebanon.
Sri Lankan authorities said dozens of bodies had been recovered after the frigate IRIS Dena sank 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.
Between 60 and more than 100 sailors remain missing of the estimated 180 on board. “We have collected 87 bodies and the search is still underway 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 arrived at the scene. “We found people floating in the water and rescued them,” said navy spokesman Commander Buddhika Sampath.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed the attack, stating at the Pentagon: “A US submarine sank an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Quiet death.”
The Pentagon said it was the first time since World War II that a U.S. submarine had sunk an enemy ship. Gen. Dan Caine, the top U.S. military officer, said Washington had destroyed more than 20 Iranian navy ships since the war began on Saturday.
Additionally, agents from Iran’s Intelligence Ministry signaled their openness to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for talks on ending the war, the New York Times reported Wednesday, citing officials briefed on the matter.
The offer was made through the spy agency of an unnamed country, the NYT said, citing Middle Eastern officials and officials from a Western nation who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The White House and CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Officials in Washington are skeptical about whether Iran or the Trump administration are really prepared for an “exit path,” at least in the short term, the report added.
Strait of Hormuz
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said on Wednesday it was in full 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 told 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 rushed to evacuate citizens stranded by war in the Middle East, as Iran expanded its missile and drone bombardment on the fifth day of a war that sent global stocks sinking.
The war sparked by a US-Israeli strike that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has seen Iran lash out with missiles and drone strikes from Israel across the Gulf, and has also drawn in Hezbollah, Tehran’s proxy, in Lebanon.
Cities like Dubai and Riyadh, which have long prided themselves on their security from the region’s tumult, have been drawn in, and the growing chaos spares few of Iran’s neighbors.
A ballistic missile launched from Iran and headed toward Turkish airspace over Iraq and Syria was destroyed by NATO air defense systems, Turkish officials said 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.
The Revolutionary Guard previously warned ships not to enter the strait, and major shipping companies have already suspended transit through the waterway and maritime agencies reported that several ships were attacked.
A ballistic missile launched from Iran and headed toward Turkish airspace over Iraq and Syria was destroyed by NATO air defense systems, Turkish officials said Wednesday.
The Ministry of Defense said it had been “engaged and neutralized by NATO air and missile defense assets deployed in the eastern Mediterranean.”
He did not specify the missile’s intended target. Iran has been attacking sites across the region in retaliation after the United States and Israel launched attacks against it on Saturday.
A Turkish official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the missile had “targeted a base in Greek Cyprus, but veered off course.”
Officials said the fragments that fell in the Dortyol district in 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 phone 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,” during the call with Iranian Abbas Araghchi, according to a statement from the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Gulf countries have borne much of Tehran’s response since the United States and Israel launched a massive air campaign against Iran over the weekend and an 11-year-old girl was killed in Kuwait on Wednesday by falling shrapnel.
Thirteen people, seven of them civilians, have been killed in countries around the Gulf since the war began.
The Pentagon has announced the deaths of six US service members since Saturday, four of them in Kuwait.
The Qatari prime minister urged “an immediate cessation of these attacks” on the call and said Iran had “attacked civilian and residential areas” despite Araghchi’s assertion that “the Iranian missile attacks were directed at American interests and did not target the State of Qatar.”
“These attacks cannot go without a response,” Sheikh Mohammed added.
Kuwait’s Health Ministry said that “resuscitation was carried out in the ambulance while the girl was transported to the hospital,” adding that attempts continued for almost half an hour at Al-Amiri Hospital, but that she “died due to her injuries.”
The United Arab Emirates and Qatar said they had intercepted Iranian missile and drone strikes, and the UAE reported it struck three ballistic missiles and intercepted 121 of 129 drones, while Qatar said it shot down 10 drones and two cruise missiles.
Israeli missions
Iran’s military threatened on Wednesday to attack Israeli missions around the world if Israel attacked Tehran’s mission in Lebanon, a military spokesman said.
Abolfazl Shekarchi, 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 target.”
On Tuesday, Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman, said it “warns representatives of the Iranian terrorist regime who are still in Lebanon to leave immediately before being attacked,” giving them 24 hours to leave.
