Pete Hegseth said a senior Iranian leader accused of plotting to assassinate Donald Trump has been killed, as he declared that U.S. forces now have complete control of the skies. He added that the military is now moving into a new phase of the campaign, with plans to begin deploying massive gravity bombs.
Hegseth said, "The leader of the unit that attempted to assassinate President Trump has been hunted down and killed," at a press conference on Wednesday. He stressed that it was "not the focus" of the operation and was "never raised by the president," but he and others made sure the leader was added to the "target list."
US Going All Out on Iran
However, Hegseth did not name the person involved or give details about the alleged plot against Trump. The president said that he approved the U.S. and Israeli strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, arguing that U.S. intelligence suggested Tehran was planning to target him first.
"Four days in we have only just begun," Hegseth said. "Now with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound GPS and laser-guided precision gravity bombs of which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile."
This came as a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian vessel with an underwater torpedo, making it the first such strike since World War II, Hegseth said.
The U.S. has struck over 2,000 targets in just four days of its war against Iran. The U.S. military says it now has full control of Iranian airspace and has begun deploying "laser-guided precision gravity bombs."
The hit came only hours after Iran announced a new Supreme Leader — Mojtaba Khamenei — after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in coordinated U.S.-Israeli attacks on Saturday.
According to Hegseth, one of the most significant milestones of the campaign was the complete destruction of an Iranian warship, which was taken out by an underwater torpedo.
"An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters,' the secretary said at a morning press conference at the Pentagon. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo, [a] quiet death, the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II."
It is the first time since World War II that a U.S. submarine has sunk an enemy ship. The last comparable incident dates back to 1982, when Britain's nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed an Argentine vessel during the Falklands War.
The torpedo strike took place on Monday in the Indian Ocean, Hegseth said. While he did not identify the ship by name, reports earlier indicated that an Iranian warship had gone down off the coast of Sri Lanka.
Footage released by the Department of War, filmed through the submarine's periscope, captures the dramatic moment of impact. The Iranian vessel is seen jolting sharply upward before erupting in a massive blast of smoke and seawater.
Massacre at Sea
The attack used a Mark 48 torpedo carrying a 650-pound warhead, detonated beneath the ship's stern. In the video, the rear of the vessel briefly lifts clear of the water after the hit, underscoring the sheer force of the explosion.
Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath told the parliament that the strike occurred around 5 am local time. He told parliament that around 180 people were on board the Iranian vessel, which he identified as the IRIS Dena.
The Sri Lankan Navy launched a rescue operation after the vessel sent out a distress call at dawn.
Sri Lankan Navy spokesperson Buddhika Sampath said the rescue mission was carried out in line with the country's maritime responsibilities. He added that 32 Iranian sailors were evacuated to the main hospital in Galle, about 70 miles south of the capital, Colombo.
"We responded to the distress call under our international obligations, as this is within our search and rescue area in the Indian Ocean," Sampath told AFP.
The Iranian warship IRIS Dena was among the country's newest additions to its navy and was reportedly heavily armed, carrying surface-to-air missiles, a deck cannon, machine guns, torpedo launchers, and anti-ship missiles.
The vessel had been actively deployed and recently took part in a naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal, which ran from February 18 to 25, according to details published on the drill's official website.
