A torpedo fired by a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka, whose navy said Wednesday it recovered 87 bodies and rescued 32 people.

The Iranian vessel sunk in the Indian Ocean was the Islamic Republic’s “prize ship,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said. It was one of the few instances of a submarine sinking a ship since World War II.

The sinking of the IRIS Dena illustrates a U.S.-Israeli military operation against Iran that is stretching beyond its borders. U.S. President Donald Trump has said one of the key objectives of the war is to wipe out Iran’s navy.

“An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon news briefing. “Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo.”

After Sri Lanka’s navy received a distress signal from the IRIS Dena, which had 180 people on board, it sent ships and planes on a rescue mission, the country’s foreign minister, Vijitha Herath, told Parliament.

But by the time Sri Lanka’s navy reached the location, there was no sign of the ship, “only some oil patches and life rafts,” navy spokesman Commander Buddhika Sampath said. “We found people floating on the water.”

The IRIS Dena — one of Iran’s newest warships — patrolled in deep water, and was armed with heavy guns, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles and torpedoes. It carried one helicopter.

The ship had been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in February 2023, along with eight executives of an Iranian drone manufacturer that supplied weapons to Russia for use against civilian targets in Ukraine.

At least 17 Iranian naval vessels have been sunk during the ongoing war, said U.S. Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads the American military’s Central Command.

(AP)