Sailors on the IRIS Dena sampled Indian food and visited the Taj Mahal before being attacked near Sri Lanka.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran attacked commercial ships on Wednesday across the Persian Gulf and targeted Dubai International Airport, escalating a campaign of squeezing the oil-rich region as global energy concerns mounted and American and Israeli airstrikes pounded the Islamic Republic.

The torpedo attack off the coast of Sri Lanka was the first such sinking by the US Navy since World War II, Defense Secretary Hegseth said.

US forces obliterated several Iranian navy vessels — including 16 minelayers — near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday as President Trump warned the Islamic Republic against planting explosives along the critical global trade route.

A U.S. Navy submarine sank an Iranian warship in international waters, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday, the first such sinking of an enemy ship since World War II.

The Pentagon says it has destroyed Iran's Navy, and that all Iran's senior leaders have been killed. But questions remains about the strategic objectives of the U.S.- and Israeli-led military campaign.

Sri Lanka said its navy rescued 32 survivors after a U.S. torpedo sunk Iranian warship IRIS Dena with 180 aboard. Crews recover 87 bodies from the wreckage.

The United States and Iran have offered sharply different accounts of the sinking of an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean.