The US strike on Qeshm Island has placed military action near the Strait of Hormuz alongside Washington’s stated pursuit of a negotiated settlement with Tehran.
US officials told The Wall Street Journal that the operation targeted surface-to-air missiles being used against US assets. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired a surface-to-air missile at an American aircraft in the Strait of Hormuz, bringing down an American MQ-9 Reaper drone over waters east of the waterway, according to US accounts.
A US fighter jet then destroyed the missile launcher on Qeshm Island in self-defence. Washington struck the island on Monday in an operation reported as “defensive”.
Several explosions were heard on Qeshm Island on Monday evening, Iranian state media said.
Qeshm lies off Iran’s southern coast near the Strait of Hormuz and is the largest island in the Persian Gulf. It has previously been used to launch attacks on shipping in the waterway.
Reports say anti-ship missiles, mines, drones and attack craft are kept in underground tunnels on the island.
The operation came amid a series of limited US strikes against Iran in recent weeks. Washington has kept that military campaign quiet deliberately to avoid signalling an intention to escalate into major combat.
Hours before the strikes, Vice President JD Vance told CNN: “The president and I both feel really good about the prospect of potentially coming to a negotiated settlement”. He said Iran was unpredictable and that President Donald Trump retained “kinetic and non-kinetic” options against Tehran.
Washington has set no deadline for a peace deal with Iran. On 1 November, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump wanted to resolve the Iranian war “diplomatically,” and preferred to avoid military force.
Trump has said the US had to go to war with Iran to stop the country from having “a nuclear weapon”. He told Fox News that the US could destroy Pickaxe Mountain in one hour, while also saying that an agreement with Tehran could happen and that there was a very good chance of a deal.
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