Rumors Swirl Around Claims Of US Sinking Important Iranian Ship In Red Sea… Here’s What We Know

Fog of war. That’s the term describing the difficult task of sorting fact from fiction in the midst of a conflict… and there’s plenty of fog in the Middle East at the moment.

With Iran’s proxies kicking into high gear in the region — especially the Houthis who have declared open season on US vessles — Trump has made it clear that Iran will be held personally responsible for any escalation on the part of its surrogates.

With Iran chasing a nuke, and Trump trying to keep them from getting there, we’re fast approaching the ‘find out’ phase of this international conflict, with neither side apparently willing to blink.

Yemen has announced that it is willing to fire on American ships passing through the Red Sea. America has a role in keeping international shipping lanes open. Piracy is not a threat that Trump can easily ignore. Historically, fighting with a militant Islamist nation over issues of piracy is among the earliest martial memories America has as a nation, one memorialized every time we hear the words ‘shores of Tripoli’ sung in the Marines’ Hymn.

With the Houthis forcing our hand again, Trump is directing his attention to the wellspring on which the Islamists have relied… Iran.

Not only have they been working with groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and others to destabilize the region and subvert their rivals giving them access to gear and expertise they could not manage on their own (helping Hamas coordinate the October 7 massacre, for instance), Iran has a history of helping coordinate their efforts, including intel. Even the UN admits this in an official 2021 report.

It was during action in the Red Sea in January 2024 that two Marines were lost during the boarding and seizure of an Iranian weapons shipment bound for the Houthis.

There have been claims of attempted strikes by Yemeni Houthis against American targets, including, this past week, the USS Harry S. Truman. (Unsuccessful.) American forces have struck at Houthi targets, including JPost reports of successfully taking out Yemen’s Security Chief.

Did We Sink A Key Iranian Ship?

The rumor being reported on some social media channels — and some of the news sites that lean heavily on such reports — is that the Americans have sunk a critical new addition to Iran’s fleet… the Zagros. (Examples: 1, 2,

Launched only in January of this year, the Zagros is an important addition to the navy of a country like Iran that relies so heavily on cyber warfare and disposable guerrilla proxies fighting at arms’ length.

According to information published by Tasnim on January 15, 2025, the Iranian Navy has officially commissioned the Zagros, a combat reconnaissance destroyer, into its fleet. The Zagros destroyer is designed to perform both combat and intelligence missions.
[…] Intelligence ships, often called spy ships, are specialized naval vessels designed to gather intelligence through sophisticated electronic surveillance and data collection. Operated by navies or intelligence agencies, these ships play a crucial role in national security by intercepting signals, monitoring communications, and gathering information on foreign military operations.

Equipped with advanced technologies, intelligence ships house state-of-the-art antennas and communication systems to intercept a broad range of electronic transmissions. Their satellite communication links enable real-time data sharing with command centers, enhancing situational awareness and decision-making capabilities. While primarily focused on intelligence gathering, these vessels also carry defensive systems for self-protection, ensuring operational safety in contested waters.

Operating in international waters, intelligence ships position themselves strategically to monitor sea and air activity, intercept signals, and observe military exercises. They provide a more focused and sustained intelligence-gathering capability compared to satellites, offering an invaluable asset in modern defense strategies. Many of these ships are camouflaged as civilian vessels to minimize detection and suspicion, blending seamlessly into their environment while performing critical tasks. —ArmyRecognition

We at ClashDaily will continue to treat this report as an ‘unconfirmed rumor’ until either confirmed or disproven. Unless and until there is confirmation that it has been sunk, we will treat this as another ‘fog of war’ rumor.

That said, the rumor itself is important to the larger story about this conflict. With Trump promising to escalate and make Iran pay a heavy toll, he may take a page from Ronald Reagan’s playbook. Especially if he uses their history of piracy as a justification. Specifically, we are referring to, Operation Praying Mantis, where Reagan sank Iran’s entire navy and bases after an American ship hit an Iranian mine.

If Trump wants to hold back a little so that he’s still got room to escalate, turning a shiny new intelligence gathering ship like this one into a hole in the ocean would go a long way to sending a message that we’re getting a little tired of the Iran regime’s bull***t — especially after Iran hired people to murder Trump before he could take office.

As for escalation? It’s a little difficult for a totalitarian regime like Iran to pay for terrorism from their oil field profits if the entire oil infrastructure has been blown to atoms… isn’t it?

Is that outcome sure to happen? No.

Is it on the table and under consideration?

You could bet your bottom dollar that it is. And a regime whose hold on power in their own country is as shaky as Iran’s has GOT to be running the math on those odds.

Say what you will about the disadvantages of his negotiating style, THIS is where Trump’s unpredictability is a force multiplier in negotiations. It doesn’t have to be a strong possibility that Trump’s wild enough to do it… just that there is SOME possibility.

Exactly the opposite situation that risk-averse Joe Biden had when HE tried to bluff foreign powers, and they wouldn’t so much as answer the phone when he called.