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Americans torpedo a ship, a first since WWII

Perlina Rossi-Brown

2026-03-09 08:58:37

Credit: Getty Images

This is a first since World War II: on Tuesday, an American submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka.

“In the Indian Ocean, […] an American submarine sank an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters.”

Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of Defense, announced on Wednesday during a press conference at the Pentagon.
Standing alongside Hegseth, Chief of Staff General Dan Caine specified that “for the first time since 1945, a U.S. Navy fast attack submarine sank an enemy combat ship using a single Mark 48 instant-effect torpedo, sending the warship to the bottom of the ocean.”

"It's not a fair fight," says Hegseth.

“This is not a fair fight, and it never was. We are striking them while they are down. The Iranian air force no longer exists. The Iranian navy is at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, decimated, destroyed. It lost the battle long ago […].” “We control Iran’s destiny,” Hegseth said. The attack therefore illustrates that the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran extends beyond its borders. US President Donald Trump has stated that one of his objectives is to destroy the Iranian navy.

Tehran denounces an "atrocity."

Denouncing “an atrocity,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Thursday that the United States would “bitterly regret” this act. Shortly after the attack, the Sri Lankan navy was informed of the ship’s distress, with 180 sailors on board.
A rescue mission was launched, mobilizing ships and aircraft. The Sri Lankan navy said it recovered 87 bodies and rescued 32 people, who were admitted to a hospital in Galle, in the south of the island.

One of the most powerful Iranian ships

The frigate in question was the IRIS Dena, which was apparently on its way back after participating in the MILAN 2026 multinational naval exercises in India, according to CNN.

These exercises included ships from 18 “foreign countries” and aircraft from three other nations, including the United States.

A preventive measure

According to Carl Schuster, analyst and retired captain in the US Navy, the IRIS Dena posed a real threat in the current context: “It is highly likely that the frigate was positioned to strike merchant ships flying the flag of a country friendly to the United States or carrying goods for one of them. This sinking can be justified as a preventive measure,” he told CNN.

One of the newest and most powerful

Although the presence of the IRIS Dena in this exercise may have seemed harmless, it should be noted that the ship was one of the newest and most powerful in the Iranian fleet.

It was armed with cannons, missiles, and torpedoes. It also carried a helicopter.

20 Iranian vessels

The United States sanctioned IRIS Dena in 2023, along with eight executives from an Iranian drone manufacturer that supplied weapons to Russia for use against Ukrainian civilians.

According to the United States, at least 20 Iranian ships have been sunk since the start of the conflict.