Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has warned of repercussions after the US struck the Iranian frigate Dena in international waters without warning, saying the ship was a guest of India’s navy.
“The US will bitterly regret the precedent it has set,” Abbas Araqchi wrote on Thursday in a post on X.
A US submarine strike hit the Iranian vessel off Sri Lanka’s southern coast, thousands of miles from the Gulf, on Wednesday.
Thirty-two Iranian sailors who survived a US submarine strike in the Indian Ocean were recovering at a hospital in the Sri Lankan port city of Galle, authorities said after at least 87 were killed in the attack.
Officials at the National Hospital in Galle and navy sources said 87 bodies were brought in by military rescuers who responded to an early-morning distress call from the IRIS Dena on Wednesday.
Search and rescue operations for an estimated 60 people on board who remain unaccounted for would continue on Thursday, authorities said.
The 32 rescued sailors were being treated for minor injuries and could be released from the hospital soon, authorities said.
Two policemen guarded the entrance to ward No. 58 of the hospital as nurses milled about and doctors conducted morning rounds.
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry on Thursday reported drone attacks carried out from Iranian territory.
Two people were injured due to the attacks, the foreign ministry said.
It said that Azerbaijan had summoned the Iranian ambassador and that the country reserves the right to retaliate.
Video footage shared by a source close to the government showed black smoke rising near the terminal of Nakhchivan International Airport, which is about 10 km from the border with Iran.
