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Key takeaways
- Anonymous U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal the U.S. carried out limited strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island on Monday 2 November.
- Iran's state-owned news agency IRNA reported a rapid series of explosions on the island of Qeshm, and Tehran had issued no formal response to the strikes by Tuesday morning.
- Vance and Trump spoke of progress on Monday, while Iranian officials said the ball is in America's court.
- The strikes do not establish that talks have ended, and officials say they are not a resumption of major combat.
The United States carried out limited strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island, in the Strait of Hormuz, on Monday 2 November, according to U.S. officials who spoke anonymously to the Wall Street Journal. Iran's state-owned news agency IRNA reported a rapid series of explosions on the island late that night, Iranian local time. No U.S. official has spoken on the record. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) did not respond to requests for comment from ABC News and AFP, and the Pentagon referred questions to CENTCOM. The U.S. midterm elections are being held today, Tuesday 3 November.
The Wall Street Journal's sources said the aim was to limit Iran's ability to threaten commercial shipping in the strait. They described the action as the latest in a series of limited strikes in recent weeks. They said the campaign was kept quiet on purpose so that it would not look like a return to major combat. Two officials told ABC News the strikes were defensive and limited in scope. One of them said the strikes do not signal a resumption of major combat operations. A second official told Reuters they were defensive measures against Iranian use of surface-to-air missiles against U.S. assets. One official told ABC the strikes answered an Iranian attack on a U.S. aircraft. Fox News, citing officials, reported the same account.
What Iranian state media report
Iran's state news agency IRNA reported five explosions in rapid succession on Qeshm late on Monday, local time. Witnesses told IRNA they saw two aircraft over the island, according to Al Jazeera. The Fars news agency reported explosions from the direction of the sea near the port of Bandar Lengeh in Hormozgan province, Reuters said. Neither agency gave a cause, casualties or damage.
Earlier on Monday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said through the Tasnim news agency that it had brought down two U.S. reconnaissance drones south of Qeshm using electronic warfare. A U.S. official told ABC News the claim was false. On Saturday, Iranian state television cited a provincial official as saying U.S. forces attacked two fishing boats near the island and wounded one fisherman. The U.S. did not immediately confirm the report.
By about 10:30 CET on Tuesday, the Iranian government had not issued a formal response to the strikes. A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday that Iran was ready to respond forcefully to U.S. strikes in the region and beyond.
Several points remain unclear. These are exactly what was hit, whether there were casualties or damage, which aircraft was involved in the reported incident and when, and how many earlier unannounced strikes took place. The Wall Street Journal says Qeshm hosts an underground missile facility, a naval base and a major desalination plant. Axios, citing a U.S. official, reported that a U.S. fighter jet destroyed a missile launcher in self-defence. None of the reporting says whether any of those three sites was hit.
Observers are reading: how each side's public language on the strikes and the talks diverges, and what that gap signals for the mediation track.
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What the strikes test
The Qeshm action is not the first U.S. strike on Iranian territory in this war. The U.S. struck Qeshm and Bandar Abbas on 7 May and the island again in early June, and Iranian media have reported explosions there several times since. Officials and CENTCOM also presented those strikes as responses to Iranian attacks. The United States and Israel launched the war on 28 February. A ceasefire followed on 8 April, but repeated exchanges of fire have strained it. A U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports continues, and Iran restricts shipping in the strait, which normally carries about a fifth of the world's oil, according to Euronews.
Oil moved little. Brent crude rose 0.5 percent to $105.25 a barrel in early Asian trade on Tuesday, The National reported. That followed a fall of more than 7 percent on Monday on hopes of an end to the conflict, AFP reported.
The strikes do not establish that talks have ended or that major combat has resumed. U.S. officials say the second has not happened. Both governments say the mediated exchanges continue. What the strikes test is whether the Qatari-mediated track, and the Iranian idea of reopening Hormuz, hold when the U.S. strikes Iranian soil during active mediation. That remains to be seen.
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