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The Wall Street Journal first reported the strikes on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, citing US officials who confirmed American forces carried out the limited operation. Iranian state media including IRNA and Fars News Agency reported multiple explosions on the island with some accounts describing five blasts in rapid succession along with sightings of aircraft overhead. US Central Command has yet to issue a public statement on the matter despite requests for comment from several news outlets including the BBC and Reuters.
US officials told both the Wall Street Journal and CNN that the action was defensive in nature and aimed at countering Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps use of surface-to-air missiles against American assets including a US aircraft. The strikes were also framed as an effort to deter attacks on commercial shipping passing through the vital Strait of Hormuz where Iran has been active in recent months. A US official speaking anonymously stressed that the operation was not intended to mark a return to the larger combat phase of the conflict that ran from February to April.
The Qeshm action forms part of a series of smaller undisclosed strikes that the United States has conducted against Iranian targets over recent weeks according to officials who spoke with the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. Those earlier operations were kept from public view to avoid any appearance of resuming full-scale hostilities in the run-up to the November 3 midterm elections. Iranian media has not detailed damage from the latest strikes and no casualty figures have been released by either side.
President Donald Trump told reporters on November 2 that he was in no rush to escalate further against Iran stating one way or the other we will do something but there is no rush as the country had been crippled financially with no money or gasoline. Trump added in separate remarks that we had a war with Iran we won and that he did not even know if you can call it a war because we have not been doing any fighting for months. The president also signaled that a deal with Tehran could happen noting that they want to make a deal according to interviews cited by the South China Morning Post and Axios.
The conflict which began in February when US and Israeli forces struck Iran has become a major political liability for Republicans as higher energy costs and other economic effects weigh on voters according to analyses in the Financial Times and the Telegraph. Trump has faced falling approval ratings and pressure from within his own party to wind down the war ahead of the midterm vote that will decide control of Congress. Vice President JD Vance has meanwhile voiced optimism about diplomatic progress telling reporters that both he and the president feel pretty good about the prospects for a negotiated settlement.
Qeshm Island houses underground missile sites a naval base and a major desalination plant making it a strategically significant target at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz according to descriptions provided to the Wall Street Journal. The island had been struck previously during the initial phase of the war and officials had even discussed the possibility of seizing it at one point. Iranian authorities have not issued an official response to the latest incident though the Revolutionary Guard has claimed in recent days to have downed US drones in the vicinity as reported by Tasnim news agency.
