U.S. Carries Out ‘Limited Strikes’ on Iran’s Qeshm Island

U.S. forces attacked Iranian targets on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday in what American officials described as a “limited” and “defensive” action to protect ships and planes in the area from Iranian terrorist attacks.

Both American and Iranian sources said peace talks reportedly remain ongoing despite the exchange of fire.

Iranian state media reported five rapid explosions were heard on Qeshm Island on Monday and two American warplanes were glimpsed in the skies overhead. Iran’s state-run Fars news agency said explosions were also heard in Bandar Lengeh, a port city about 65 miles from the southwestern tip of Qeshm.

Qeshm is the largest island in the Persian Gulf, with a total surface area of about 576 square miles. The island has been strategically vital to controlling the Strait of Hormuz for centuries, due to its size and proximity to the mainland Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has a major naval base on Qeshm, servicing both surface and underwater craft, along with numerous missile launchers and a network of underground tunnels to supply them. Iranian officials often refer to these tunnel complexes as “missile cities,” and compare the fortified island to a stationary aircraft carrier.

U.S. officials said the strikes were prompted by “Iranians using surface-to-air missiles against U.S. assets.”

An unnamed American official told CNN more specifically that Iran fired on an American aircraft, and the swift retaliatory strike wiped out the positions that launched the missiles. The leftist newspaper New York Times (NYT) quoted another official who said Iran “shot down an American drone, and shot at, but missed, two American fighter jets flying over the Strait of Hormuz.”

On Monday, the IRGC claimed it brought down two U.S. MQM-170 drones south of Qeshm Island using “electronic warfare systems.” The IRGC claimed to have captured two other drones of the same type last week using similar methods, with one brought down as it was passing over Qeshm Island. The U.S. military rejected all of these claims.

Iran also reportedly launched a missile from Qeshm Island at commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, but the weapon was intercepted by U.S. forces.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) often releases statements about combat actions in the Strait of Hormuz, but did not comment on Monday’s strike.

According to administration officials who spoke to various media outlets on background, several other targeted strikes have been covertly conducted against Iranian targets over the past few weeks to degrade the IRGC’s ability to threaten U.S. forces and civilian ships. The NYT’s source said some of these U.S. strikes hit “empty cruise missile launchers.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state media on Monday that Iran is prepared for both military and diplomatic options, “more than ever before.”

“We have announced our specific conditions and presented our formulated plan. Now everything depends on how much political rationality prevails on the American side, and whether there is a will to take the wise path of diplomacy – or, as in previous instances, to drag the situation toward aggression and military operations,” he said.

Araghchi said that if the U.S. and Israel resume military action against Iran, the response would be “far harsher and more regretful than before,” and that President Donald Trump can only secure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz by accepting Iran’s “rightful conditions.”

Iran’s deputy secretary for human rights, Khosrow Hakimi, said U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran were “the most serious human rights issue of 2026,” and demanded “accountability” for American and Israeli officials as part of any resolution to the conflict.

Speaking at the rollout of an Iranian “report on human rights violations in the United States and United Kingdom” on Tuesday, Hakimi dwelled at length on U.S. strikes that allegedly struck or damaged civilian facilities in Iran, without mentioning the Iranian regime’s mass murder of its own subjects in January to suppress protests, or Iran’s policy of deliberately attacking civilian ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

As for the United Kingdom, the Iranian official accused it of “human rights abuses” for assisting the United States, and for banning the group “Palestine Action” in Britain.