President Donald Trump has confirmed that US forces carried out a new round of limited strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island, days after an earlier round hit the island in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump spoke to reporters in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday evening, shortly after Iranian state media reported explosions on the island.
Trump described the operation as minor. He said US forces had destroyed an Iranian anti-aircraft installation on the island. “We do minor strikes,” Trump told reporters. “They built a little bit of an anti-aircraft device, and we knocked it out in about 15 minutes, maybe five.”
What was reported on Qeshm Island
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported early on Saturday that two missiles had struck Qeshm Island in southern Iran. State news agency IRNA cited local witnesses who said they heard an aircraft before two projectiles struck the Suza area of the island.
State broadcaster IRIB also reported an Iranian army statement saying the country’s air defence forces had intercepted and destroyed an American MQ-9 drone over Qeshm Island. That claim has not been confirmed by the United States. Iranian authorities had not released an official damage assessment, and there were no confirmed casualty figures.
US Central Command, which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, said the situation was “relatively calm” in response to the reports of explosions on Qeshm Island. The precise link between the reported missile impacts and the US operation has not been independently established.
Much about the new round remains unclear. Neither the United States nor Iran has published a damage assessment, and no casualty figures have been confirmed by either side. The Iranian claim that its air defences brought down an American drone has not been confirmed by Washington, and the two reported missile impacts have not been tied to a specific target in public reporting.
A second round of strikes on Qeshm Island
The strikes on Friday were the first since the earlier round on Qeshm Island at the start of the week. Iranian media reported several explosions on the island on Monday, and American officials described that operation as defensive strikes aimed at threats to US military assets in the Strait of Hormuz.
The earlier round was reported by Iranian media on Monday, when several explosions were heard on the island. American media outlets reported at the time that US forces had carried out what officials called defensive strikes in the strait. The new round on Friday was the first military action of its kind since that operation, and the first since the midterm elections.
The island sits in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which a large share of the world’s seaborne oil passes. The island is the largest in the strait, and its position has made it a focus of the military standoff between the United States and Iran.
Talks continue alongside the Qeshm Island strikes
Trump said on Friday that the United States had made “a lot of progress” in talks with Iran, without giving details of what had been agreed. Qatar has urged both sides to reach a peace deal, and Trump has said Washington controls shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The talks have run alongside a build-up of US forces in the region, and reporting in recent days has described American forces as prepared for further operations if the talks fail. Trump has not said what would trigger a wider campaign, and no date for further action has been announced. For now, the strikes have stayed limited to single targets, while the diplomacy continues in parallel.
The new strikes on Qeshm Island came on the same day as a separate incident in the Gulf. An explosion aboard the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker MT Velos Sapphire on 5 November killed one seafarer, according to the ship’s manager. The cause of that explosion has not been confirmed.
On Friday, US Central Command also announced in a post on X that the US was offering a reward of up to 20 million dollars, with possible relocation, for information about Iran’s nuclear programme. The strikes were the first since Trump’s Republican Party was dealt a heavy defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections in the US.