Images of Russian and Norwegian tankers falsely linked to Iranian warship's sinking
- Published on March 10, 2026 at 09:35
- 3 min read
- By Harshana SILVA, AFP Sri Lanka
After an Iranian warship was sunk with a torpedo fired by a US submarine just outside Sri Lanka's territorial waters on March 4, 2026, images of damaged ships circulated in social media posts falsely claiming they showed the navy frigate. Two of the three images in fact show a Russian liquefied natural gas carrier that sank in the Mediterranean Sea on March 3, while the other shows a Norwegian-owned oil tanker said to have been attacked in the waters of the Gulf of Oman in June 2019.
"The full toll from the Iranian ship sunk near Galle, Sri Lanka. 101 missing. 1 confirmed dead. 78 injured. 79 rescued by the Sri Lankan navy," reads part of the caption written in Sinhala and English of three images shared on Facebook on March 4, 2026.
"The vessel has sunk. America's submarines are operating thousands of miles from the Middle East, dismantling Iran's naval [presence]."
Two of the images are aerial shots of a ship with a gaping hole in its hull, while the third -- taken from further away -- shows black smoke billowing from a large vessel.
The images also appeared in similar posts on Facebook hours after a US submarine torpedoed and sank the IRIS Dena, an Iranian frigate, in waters off Sri Lanka's southern coast on March 4 (archived link).
At least 84 Iranian sailors were killed in the attack, with 64 more missing. Sri Lanka rescued 32 injured survivors.
The island nation is also providing safe haven for another 219 Iranian sailors from a second ship, the IRIS Bushehr, that was allowed to berth a day after the Dena was sunk. India, meanwhile, said it had allowed a third Iranian warship, the IRIS Lavan, to dock in one of its ports on "humane" grounds after it too reported engine problems.
The three ships were part of a multinational naval exercise held by India before the start of the war in the Middle East, initiated by joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.
But the images circulating on social media do not show the torpedoed Iranian warship.
Mediterranean Sea sinking
A reverse image search on Google of the ship with the damaged hull led to the same images shared by the same user on X on March 4, in Ukrainian and English posts (archived here and here).
The X account belongs to Serhii Sternenko, an adviser to Ukraine's Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov on the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (archived link).
The English post says the image shows a Russian gas tanker in the Mediterranean Sea.
A check of the coordinates visible on the image also point to waters off Libya in the Mediterranean Sea (archived link).
AFP reported that the Libyan port authority said the Russian carrier, Arctic Metagaz, sank after “sudden explosions” north of the port of Sirte (archived link).
The report said Russia had accused Ukraine of attacking the liquefied natural gas carrier using naval drones. Kyiv has not commented on the attack, which would be a rare successful hit on a Russian "shadow fleet" vessel while it was some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) from Ukraine.
The images were also used to illustrate reports about the sinking by the Times of Malta and Thairath (archived here and here).
Gulf of Oman explosion
A separate reverse image search of the other falsely shared image found it was also used in a 2019 Le Monde report about an attack on the Norwegian-owned tanker Front Altair in the Gulf of Oman (archived link).
The photo was credited as a handout image, distributed by the Reuters news agency.
The Front Altair ethanol tanker was hit by three explosions, according to the Norwegian Maritime Authority -- the latest in a string of attacks in the strategic shipping lane that the United States and its allies blamed on Iran (archived link).
At the time, tensions between Tehran and Washington were on the rise after the United States unilaterally quit a multilateral 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran (archived link).
AFP also distributed a similar photo of fire and smoke billowing from the Front Altair.
The image was also used in other news reports about the Front Altair, where it was credited to the IRIB news agency (archived here and here).
AFP has debunked other misinformation stemming from the war in the Middle East.
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