Iran captures US sub after attack on 5 oil tankers

Tehran: The Iranian navy has claimed to have captured one of the US military's "most modern, smart" unmanned submarines at the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz. In a statement published by Sepah News, the official news outlet of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the navy said it captured the unmanned underwater vehicle -- identified as a Dive-LD -- in a complex intelligence operation.

The submersible vehicle is equipped with the world's most modern subsurface vehicle technology, it said, and released a video of the captured vehicle.

In a separate statement, the IRGC also claimed that its air defence systems had shot down an MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Strait of Hormuz, Sepah News reported.

Following the IRGC's announcement, the US military also released a statement saying one of its underwater drones "malfunctioned" over a day earlier during a survey of regional waters, without mentioning whether the device was the one seized by Iran. "It was surveying regional waters in support of ongoing operations. The defective drone was an older model that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment," a Pentagon spokesperson said. The US military is investing heavily in unmanned naval systems, including underwater and surface vessels, as it seeks cheaper ways to monitor vast areas of ocean, gather intelligence, and track adversary ships and submarines without putting sailors at risk.

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