{"id":3004,"date":"2026-03-10T01:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T01:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/3004\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T01:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T01:02:10","slug":"us-iran-spar-over-status-of-iranian-warship-sunk-by-submarine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/3004\/","title":{"rendered":"US, Iran spar over status of Iranian warship sunk by submarine"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI \u2014 The United States and Iran have offered sharply different accounts of the sinking of an Iranian warship<\/a> in the Indian Ocean last week, with Washington rejecting Tehran\u2019s claim the vessel was unarmed and Iranian officials insisting it was operating in a noncombat role.<\/p>\n

The United States Indo-Pacific Command on Sunday rejected Iran\u2019s claim that the warship IRIS Dena was unarmed when it was sunk in a submarine attack in international waters off Sri Lanka on March 4. In a statement on X, INDOPACOM called Iran\u2019s assertion that the vessel was unarmed \u201cfalse.\u201d<\/p>\n

The response followed strong objections from Tehran, which has repeatedly characterized the warship as defenseless, saying it was returning home after taking part in a naval exercise.<\/p>\n

An Indian navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said the Iranian vessel was not \u201centirely unarmed\u201d and had taken part in drills alongside other countries\u2019 warships.<\/p>\n

Some experts have, however, suggested that visiting ships at such events typically do not carry a full combat load of live munitions unless scheduled for live-fire drills. They say even during the sea phase of exercises, ships generally carry only tightly-controlled ammunition limited to specific drills.<\/p>\n

Rahul Bedi, an independent defense analyst based in India, said the vessel may have used some limited non-offensive ammunition during the naval exercises, but protocol requires \u201cthe participating platforms to be unarmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe precondition of participating in such a parade, or such a ceremony, is that it (the vessel) comes unarmed. That is the precondition of the Indian Navy and it\u2019s a precondition of most navies when they hold such similar sort of fleet reviews,\u201d Bedi said.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said Friday that the warship, sunk by a U.S. torpedo, had not been carrying weapons and accused Washington of targeting a ceremonial vessel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat vessel was by invitation of our Indian friends, attending an international exercise. It was ceremonial. It was unloaded. It was unarmed,\u201d he told reporters in New Delhi.<\/p>\n

The IRIS Dena was sunk on March 4 in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka after being struck by a torpedo fired from a U.S. submarine, according to American and Iranian officials. The Sri Lankan navy rescued 32 sailors and recovered 87 bodies.<\/p>\n

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the IRIS Dena as a \u201cprize ship\u201d and said it \u201cdied a quiet death.\u201d Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the attack as \u201can atrocity at sea\u201d and stressed that it had been \u201ca guest of India\u2019s Navy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disputes over whether the vessel was armed have intensified tensions over the incident, which occurred as it was returning from multinational naval exercises in India, and raised questions about whether it was operating in a noncombat role when it was attacked.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s defense ministry said in a statement after the exercises that \u201clive firings as part of surface gun shoots, as well as anti-air firings, were also undertaken\u201d by participating vessels.<\/p>\n

The warship\u2019s sinking highlighted how the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran<\/a> is spreading beyond the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Two other Iranian vessels \u2014 the IRIS Bushehr and IRIS Lavan \u2014 are docked in Sri Lanka and India after seeking assistance from the two countries.<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW DELHI \u2014 The United States and Iran have offered sharply different accounts of the sinking of an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[194,192,189,193,1431,8,2668,2667,96,2665,2666,195,9,186,2669,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-3004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-circulated-defense-news","9":"tag-circulated-marine-corps-times","10":"tag-circulated-military-times","11":"tag-circulated-navy-times","12":"tag-dn-dnr","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-indo-pacific-command","15":"tag-indopacom","16":"tag-iran-war","17":"tag-iranian-warship","18":"tag-iris-dena","19":"tag-military-times","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-operation-epic-fury","22":"tag-submarine","23":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116202185848511154","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}