U.S. President Donald Trump has said destroying the Iranian navy is one aim of the war he and Israel launched against the Islamic Republic a week ago.
Iranian Warship Lavan docks in India
India has allowed an Iranian warship to dock as a humanitarian gesture, Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday, after the U.S. sank another Iranian navy vessel off neighbouring Sri Lanka.
India received a docking request for the Iranian warship Lavan on February 28, the day the conflict began, after the vessel developed technical issues. The ship had originally travelled to India for a fleet review.
Naval facilities in Kochi have accommodated the vessel’s 183 crew members.
According to the Indian government, Lavan docked at the southern port of Kochi on Wednesday, the same day a U.S. submarine struck the Iranian navy frigate, Dena.
Torpedoing IRIS Dena
The Sri Lanka Navy launched a search-and-rescue operation early Wednesday after receiving a distress call from the Iranian warship IRIS Dena.
The United States strike on the vessel killed at least 87 people in Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone, about 19 nautical miles off the coast, but outside its maritime boundary.
The Dena had been returning from a naval exercise organised by India, officials said.
Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said on X that the ship was “a guest of India’s Navy” and was struck without warning in international waters, adding that the United States “will bitterly regret the precedent it has set”.
The torpedoing of the vessel, described by the U.S. as a “quiet death”, marked the first such action by the U.S. since World War II and signals the widening scope of the Iran conflict.
IRIS Bushehr seeks refuge in Sri Lanka
On Thursday, Sri Lanka began offloading 208 crew members from a second Iranian vessel, the naval auxiliary ship IRIS Bushehr, which was stranded in the country’s exclusive economic zone but outside its maritime boundary. The vessel requested to enter a Sri Lankan port due to severe mechanical issues.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said the island nation had a “humanitarian responsibility” to assist the crew.
Authorities said on Friday that the vessel was escorted to a harbour on the eastern coast, and that a naval camp near Colombo would accommodate most of its crew.
