The United States Central Command (US CENTCOM) announced on Wednesday that it had struck nearly 2,000 targets in Iran since the start of Operation Epic Fury, adding that it had destroyed Tehran’s naval power and sunk 17 vessels, including one submarine.
“We’re also sinking the Iranian navy… the entire navy,” said Brad Cooper of US Central Command, adding: “So far we’ve destroyed 17 Iranian ships, including Iran’s most operational submarine, which now has a hole in its side.”
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“For decades, the Iranian regime has harassed international shipping. Today, there is not a single Iranian ship in the Arabian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz or the Gulf of Oman,” Cooper said, adding, “We will not stop.”
Following the CENTCOM briefing, the open-source site OSINTtechnical reported that rumors of an attack on the IRIS Fateh (Hull No. 920), the lead submarine of its class, near the port city of Bandar Abbas appeared in Iranian media circles yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Visegrad 24 news station reported on Wednesday that the IRIS Fateh was destroyed by the US.
However, the Mint could not independently confirm these reports, and it should be noted that no official statement regarding the IRIS Fateh has yet been received from either party.
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All about IRIS Fateh
The lead submarine of the ubiquitous Fateh class, IRIS Fateh, was commissioned into the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy sometime in mid-2010, with estimated dates ranging from 2013 to 2016.
What is confirmed, however, is that IRIS Fateh took part in Iran’s large-scale Zulfiqar-99 military exercise held in September 2020, its first public appearance since news of its launch.
The IRIS Fateh is the Iranian Navy’s first full-size indigenous submarine, according to Forbes, although it is rudimentary by US Navy standards.
The IRIS Fateh measures 157 feet in length and 14 feet in width and has a displacement of about 600 tons, compared to the 18,750 tons of the US Navy’s Ohio-class submarines.
However, despite her relatively modest tonnage, Fateh was a conventional patrol submarine capable of engaging surface targets.
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While Fateh did not see combat, he was involved in a flare-up involving the US earlier.
In April 2023, Iran claimed that its navy forced a US submarine to surface as it entered the Persian Gulf.
“The US submarine was approaching when it was submerged, but the Iranian submarine Fateh detected it and carried out… maneuvers to force it to surface as it passed through the (Strait of Hormuz). It also entered our territorial waters but… adjusted its course after being warned,” Iranian Navy Commander Shahram Irani said on state television, according to Reuters.
However, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet has denied that such an incident took place, calling the claims “more Iranian disinformation”.
