War widens as Iran says US will 'bitterly regret' sinking ship

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs,  on Thursday. Picture: AP Photo/Hassan Ammar.

Iran's foreign minister 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 hospital on Thursday, authorities said.

Two policemen guarded the entrance to ward No. 58 of the hospital as nurses milled about and doctors conducted morning rounds.

Iran launched a wave of missiles at Israel early on Thursday, sending millions of residents into bomb shelters as the US-Israel war with Iran enters its sixth day.

The war has widened sharply, with a US submarine sinking an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka and NATO air defences destroying an Iranian ballistic missile fired towards Turkey.

And as Iran postponed the funeral of slain leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his son emerged as a frontrunner to succeed him, suggesting Tehran was not about to buckle to pressure from the United States and Israel's military campaign that has killed hundreds and convulsed global markets.

Republican senators in Washington voted against a motion aimed at stopping the air campaign and requiring that military action be authorized by Congress, leaving President Trump's power to direct the war largely unbound, as the conflict continues to widen across the Middle East and beyond.

The war continues to paralyse shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, choking off vital Middle East oil and gas flows. Mr Trump has pledged to provide insurance and naval escorts for ships to contain soaring costs. 

At least 200 vessels remain anchored off the coast, according to Reuters estimates.

- Reuters