US struck Iran's Qeshm Island in secret, WSJ reports

Qeshm Island — The United States has struck Iran's Qeshm Island, the island at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz through which much of the world's oil passes, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing American officials. The report, carried by The Hindu, follows several explosions on the island according to Iran's state media outlet IRNA.

The strike was the latest in a series of limited attacks carried out by Washington in recent weeks, the Journal said. Those operations, it added, have been conducted on a smaller scale and deliberately kept secret, so as not to signal any intention of resuming the major military campaign against Iran. The U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Qeshm, a large island separated from the Iranian mainland by the Clarence Strait, sits directly on the waterway that has been at the centre of tensions between the two countries. Wide World News has reported that Gulf states were braced for the worst as US-Iran talks over Hormuz dragged on.

The reported strike lands awkwardly alongside the White House's own message. Earlier on Monday, President Donald Trump praised doubts about whether he would follow through on a threatened resumption of military strikes, and said a deal with Tehran could happen. Asked by reporters whether he was considering striking Iran after Tuesday's midterm elections, Mr Trump replied "no."

Washington and Tehran have been at war since February 28. What is confirmed is narrow: explosions were heard on Qeshm, according to IRNA, and U.S. officials told the Journal that American forces struck the island. Tehran has not, in the reporting available, set out a detailed account of damage or casualties, and none of the claims about the scale of the strikes can be independently verified.

For the people of the island and the shipping crews who work the strait, the question now is whether this was the last of the quiet strikes or the first that could not stay quiet. They are waiting to see whether Tuesday's vote in Washington brings the deal Mr Trump says is possible, or something closer to the war that never fully ended.