In Brief
- A US submarine has sunk an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean off the southern coast of Sri Lanka, killing 87.
- Clashes continue between Israel and Hezbollah as thousands evacuate in Lebanon.
A US submarine has sunk an Iranian warship off the southern coast of Sri Lanka, killing dozens of sailors and dramatically widening the US military's pursuit of the Iranian navy.
Sri Lanka's deputy foreign minister identified the warship as the frigate Iris Dena and said it was heading back to Iran from an eastern Indian port.
The attack happened in the Indian Ocean, hundreds of kilometres from the Gulf where US and Israeli forces are striking Iran and it is retaliating with missile and drone attacks.
"An American submarine sank an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters," US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said at the Pentagon.
Hospital authorities in the Sri Lankan port city of Galle said 87 bodies were brought in by military rescuers who responded to an early morning distress call.
Another 32 were rescued and were being treated at hospital and about 60 people were likely unaccounted for from an estimated 180 people on board, Sri Lankan authorities said.
A Pentagon video purporting to have captured the attack showed the warship being hit by a huge explosion which blew apart the rear of the vessel, lifting it from the water and caused it to begin sinking from the stern.
The Iranian vessel had taken part in a naval exercise organised by India in the Bay of Bengal from 18 to 25 February, according to the drill's website.
Continued strikes on Lebanon
Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed 72 people and displaced more than 83,000 since the start of a new round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanese officials announced Wednesday.
In a statement, the health ministry said "the toll of the Israeli aggression since dawn on Monday ... has risen to 72 martyrs and 437 wounded", while the minister of social affairs announced that the number of displaced in official shelters was 83,847.
Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency services said that since the start of the war, its teams had provided medical treatment to 414 people, including "10 fatalities, 2 seriously injured, 6 moderately injured, and 396 lightly injured".
Israel is carrying out airstrikes on multiple areas of Lebanon after the pro-Iran group began launching rockets and drones towards it on Monday in retaliation for the US and Israeli attack that killed Iran's supreme leader.
The Israeli military said it struck several Hezbollah targets across Lebanon on Wednesday, including rocket and missile launch sites south of the Litani river.
"Among the targets struck were numerous Hezbollah rocket and missile launch sites south of the Litani River ... including a drone production facility," the military said, hours after issuing an evacuation order for residents living in the targeted area.
The Litani River is a strategic boundary in southern Lebanon used in a 2006 UN resolution and a November 2024 Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire deal as one demarcation line of a zone in which only Lebanese authorities and UN peacekeepers are permitted.
US Casualties
On Sunday, six American soldiers were killed at an operations centre targeted by an Iranian drone strike in the heart of a civilian port in Kuwait, miles away from the main Army base.
Those killed included Captain Cody Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Sergeant 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; and Sergeant Declan Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, lowa, who was posthumously promoted from specialist.
No other names were released.
"These men and women all bravely volunteered to defend our country, and their sacrifice will never be forgotten," army secretary Daniel Driscoll said.
All were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command, which provides food, fuel, water and ammunition, transport equipment and supplies.
"Sadly, there will likely be more, before it ends. That's the way it is," US President Donald Trump said of the deaths.
On Wednesday, Trump claimed the war was progressing well for the US.
"We're doing well on the war front, to put it mildly. Somebody said on a scale of 10, where would you rate it? I said about a 15," Trump told a gathering of tech bosses at the White House.
"We're in a very strong position now, and their leadership is just rapidly going. Everybody that seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead."
Asked also about what the Trump administration knows about the strike on an Iranian girls' school on Saturday, which killed more than 160 people, Hegseth said only that the US is "investigating."
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