US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirms US was behind attack on the IRIS Dena, which has left around 140 people feared dead

Pete Hegseth did not name the ship - but earlier, the Sri Lankan navy said around 140 people were missing after the Iris Dena went down off the coast of Galle.

Defence secretary Pete Hegseth says a torpedo from a US submarine sank an Iranian warship. In a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday, Mr Hegseth said that the Tuesday night strike on an Iranian warship was the first such attack on an enemy since the Second World War.

On the fifth day of the war, a US submarine has sunk an Iranian warship, NATO has shot down a ballistic missile approaching Turkey, Israel is striking Tehran and Beirut and Iran is "close" to choosing a new leader.

The US president's comments come after Iran threatens to "set fire" to any ship trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

New explosions rang out in Tehran as Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, emerged as a successor to his assassinated father as Iran’s supreme leader.

Donald Trump suggests the conflict will escalate further as Britain questions its legality in a startling trans-Atlantic bust-up

The Israeli military launched a “broad wave” of strikes in Iran, targeting military infrastructure, hours after Iran's Revolutionary Guard conducted missile and drone attacks on Israel. US Central Command reported that American and Israeli forces have struck over 1,