Iran’s navy in crosshairs as warship sinking by US submarine ups game

The Iranian warship IRIS Dena was in the Indian Ocean when a Los Angeles-class US attack submarine fired an MK-48 torpedo, setting off a massive explosion that lifted the ship’s stern out of the water before sinking the vessel. The US Defence Department highlighted the attack – releasing black-and-white video footage that showed the USS Charlotte’s strike – to draw attention to a key element of its campaign against Iran: eliminating the country’s navy to keep the country from impeding the flow of crude oil and natural gas in the region. US officials said on Wednesday the campaign has struck or sunk about 20 ships and hit naval facilities and characterised it as evidence of the US military’s reach and ability to decimate Iran’s ability to fight back four days since launching its campaign with Israel. The Dena was far from the conflict zone. “The Iranian navy rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf,” Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a briefing on Wednesday morning. “It is no more.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio was explicit when he said the US wanted to eliminate “the threat posed by their navy to global shipping”. But oil prices have soared since the conflict and the vital Strait of Hormuz - which connects the energy-rich Persian Gulf to the wider Arabian Sea - is nearly empty over fears of Iranian attacks. US President Donald Trump has now pledged US escorts for ships transiting the crucial waterway and ordered a US agency to provide political risk insurance “at a very reasonable price” as commercial rates soar. While the US has not given a full accounting of its attack on the Iranian Navy, prior assessments suggest the country has many more vessels and assets left. A second Iranian warship was heading towards Sri Lanka’s territorial waters on Thursday, a minister told parliament. Media Minister Nalinda Jayatissa said the second Iranian warship was just outside Sri Lankan waters, but gave no further details. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake was meeting top officials on Thursday to discuss a response to an Iranian request to enter the safety of the island’s waters, official sources said. They said the vessel was carrying more than 100 crew and feared they too could be targeted the same way as the IRIS Dena. A US Defence Intelligence Agency report from 2019 – the latest unclassified US assessment available – lists more than 200 weapons-carrying vessels for the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, which primarily operates within the Persian Gulf. “The exact numbers for many Iranian small boat types are unknown, but the IRGCN has hundreds of small boats throughout the Persian Gulf,” the DIA report said. That estimate includes three fast attack submarines, one coastal sub and 15 midget submarines, as well as around eight corvettes and 100 fast attack and patrol craft armed with anti-ship missiles and torpedoes that have previously harassed tanker traffic in the region. The US Navy sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena Tuesday night in the Indian Ocean, killing at least 87 Iranian sailors, which Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi decried Thursday as “an atrocity at sea”. “Frigate Dena, a guest of India’s Navy carrying almost 130 sailors, was struck in international waters without warning,” he wrote on social media. “Mark my words: The US will come to bitterly regret (the) precedent it has set.” The US has also struck – but did not sink – the Iranian “drone carrier” Shahid Bagheri – essentially a converted container ship with a launch ramp, according to US Central Command. The US is repeatedly stressing its all-out assault on Iran’s fleet. US Central Command commander Admiral Brad Cooper said in a video on X this week that the US was “sinking the Iranian Navy – the entire Navy”. “For decades, the Iranian regime has harassed international shipping,” Cooper said. “Today there’s not a single Iranian ship under way in the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz or Gulf of Oman. And we will not stop.” Hegseth also mentioned on Wednesday that US forces also sank “their prize ship, the Soleimani” – likely a reference to one of an estimated four Shahid Soleimani guided-missile catamarans named after the Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani that Trump assassinated in his first term. Still, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has reached a near standstill, with ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg showing traffic has plummeted by over 95 per cent. Iran attacked three ships near the mouth of the Persian Gulf on Sunday. The strait’s effective closure has prompted countries like Iraq to shut production, helping to send oil prices up by about 14 per cent since the weekend and natural gas to the highest since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. “It will be important to see progress on the Iranian Navy as it retains the ability to harass vessels attempting to transit the Strait,” said Rebecca Babin, a senior equity trader at CIBC Private Wealth Group. In addition to the navy, however, she added that land-based drone threats “capable of targeting commercial shipping remain equally significant”. Additional reporting by Associated Press, dpa and Agence France-Presse

Iran’s navy in crosshairs as warship sinking by US submarine ups game

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Iran’s foreign minister says the US ‘will come to bitterly regret’ the precedent set after a US sub sank its frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka

Iran’s foreign minister says the US ‘will come to bitterly regret’ the precedent set after a US sub sank its frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka