Sri Lanka, March 4 -- About 80 bodies have been recovered so far from the Iranian naval ship IRIS Dena, which sank off the coast of Sri Lanka following an attack by a U.S. military submarine, Sri Lanka's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Arun Hemachandra told Ada Derana.

The Iranian vessel, which was sunk in the strike, was heading back to Iran from a port in eastern India, he said.

It was earlier believed at least 180 people were onboard the vessel.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth today confirmed that the US sank "an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters" in the Indian Ocean.

"Instead it was sunk by a torpedo," he says.

Hegseth did not name the Iranian ship that was attacked.

But earlier the Sri Lan...