Defence analyst says torpedo strike is a ‘humiliation’ for Modi’s government that disregarded a US defence partner
Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Dubai and Aanya Wipulasena in Colombo
The distress call came in to Sri Lanka’s maritime rescue coordination centre just after 5am. The ship in trouble, they determined, was well within Sri Lanka’s obligation for rescue, being just over 19 nautical miles off the coast of the southern city of Galle.
The navy swiftly mobilised and, by 6am, the first search and rescue boat was on its way, another soon close behind. It was hard to see through the thick morning mist but officers onboard kept their eyes peeled for a ship in the distance.
Instead they found a spooling slick of oil on the sea’s surface. Dozens of survivors held on to life rafts and bodies bobbed in the waves, but the vessel was nowhere to be seen. IRIS Dena, an Iranian warship on its way to a friendly port call in Sri Lanka, already sat on the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
It had taken under three minutes for Dena to sink after it was struck by the world’s most powerful torpedo, a Mark 48, launched by the US navy nuclear-powered submarine USS Charlotte lurking silently nearby. At least 84 people onboard were killed – their bodies were repatriated to Iran this week – in an attack that brought the US war on Iran to the Indian Ocean.
The ship was more than 3,000km (1,864 miles) away from the Gulf and not on an active mission when it was hit by the US submarine, leading to comparisons to the sinking of the Belgrano, an Argentine ship controversially attacked by a British submarine in a defining moment of the Falklands war in 1982.
Dena had been invited to the region by India, to take part in the pomp and splendour of an international fleet review in the eastern port of Visakhapatnam. A routine event for the navies of the world to show off their ships and share training exercises, Iran was one of more than 70 countries that participated over the 10 days, alongside the US, Australia and Russia. Three days later, the US and Israel began bombing Iran….
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After the truth-shower 