WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, November 3, confirmed on the record that the United States had carried out attacks on Iran, telling Fox News that American forces struck an Iranian air-defence system on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz the previous night. “They built an air defense system. As soon as it was ready, we struck it last night in a very effective manner,” Trump told Fox News, adding that it was a “minor attack,” AFP reported.

Source: AFP via Sweden Herald

The confirmation matters because of everything that was missing before it. Monday's strikes on Qeshm were first reported by The Wall Street Journal citing unnamed US officials, US Central Command — which oversees American forces in the Middle East — did not immediately comment, and no Iranian authority publicly confirmed the cause of the explosions. Trump's Fox News remarks are the first on-record presidential acknowledgment that the United States struck Iran on Monday, and they confirm that the operation was deliberate and ordered, not an accident or a local commander's improvisation.

Source: AFP via Sweden Herald / CNN

Residents of Qeshm heard five explosions early on Tuesday and saw two fighter jets in the air, according to Iran's state-run IRNA news agency. US officials told American media the attacks were “defensive” and targeted sites around the Strait of Hormuz that had been used to attack American interests; a US official told Axios that an American fighter jet was targeted by an Iranian surface-to-air missile on Monday night and struck the missile launch platform on Qeshm in response, CNN reported. The Wall Street Journal reported the Qeshm attack was the latest in a series of limited strikes Washington has carried out against Iran in recent weeks without public announcement, keeping them small and secret so as not to signal an intent to resume the major military campaign.

Source: CNN

A confirmation that sits beside Monday's “no fighting” line

The Fox News confirmation sits awkwardly beside what Trump said only a day earlier. On Monday he told reporters “we haven't been doing any fighting for months,” answered “No” when asked whether he was considering striking Iran after Tuesday's midterm elections, and told Axios he was in “no rush” to decide on new strikes — “one way or the other, we will do something, but there is no rush.” Hours before the strike he had posted on Truth Social that oil prices were falling because people felt there would not be a war, writing: “Iran wants a settlement, as soon as possible. It could happen!” By Tuesday, the same president was confirming on television that US forces had struck Iran the night before.

Source: CNN / AFP via Sweden Herald

Israel denies a role; Iran answers on two tracks

The Israeli military has denied involvement in the strikes, AFP reported — a notable denial, because the war that began on February 28 was launched by joint US-Israeli attacks, and Israel has struck Iran alongside the United States through much of it. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, for its part, claimed its navy captured a fourth US MQM-170 reconnaissance drone intact west of the Strait of Hormuz on Monday after taking control of its guidance systems, IRNA reported, and Press TV said two US drones were intercepted south of Qeshm. Those drone claims are Iran's claims: the United States has previously denied an Iranian drone-capture claim, and no independent confirmation of Monday's claimed captures had been published by Tuesday afternoon.

Source: AFP via Sweden Herald / IRNA via Indian Economic Observer

Tehran's political answer ran on two tracks at once. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who leads Iran's negotiating team, said in a televised speech on Tuesday that it was up to the United States to “prevent war,” declaring: “Countries in the region should know that the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready for battle with its finger on the trigger, but has also given the American side a strong and rational response,” AFP reported. In Tehran's Enghelab Square, a huge new billboard reading “We will kill Trump” went up on Tuesday over an image of the president behind bars — a display Awaaz Punjab is reporting separately as it moves through the newsroom. A senior Iranian official has separately told Reuters the two sides remain far from a deal and Tehran will not accept excessive US demands.

Source: AFP via Sweden Herald

Qalibaf's “ball is in the US court” position and the Iranian official's warning that a deal is still out of reach were reported earlier on Tuesday: Read: Iran-US deal still out of reach, Tehran says

Qatar says both sides are studying its proposals

The diplomacy has not paused for the strikes. Qatar, which is acting as a mediator in the conflict, said efforts are under way to bridge the gap between the parties and that both countries are now studying proposals and ideas for a peaceful solution presented by Qatar, its foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said, according to Al Jazeera. Qatari mediators flew to Tehran on Monday night carrying the latest draft suggestions, and Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has said Tehran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz within two days if its conditions are met — an end to the war on all fronts, the US naval blockade lifted, frozen Iranian assets released and oil sanctions dropped, Reuters reported.

Source: Al Jazeera via Sweden Herald / Reuters

Oil prices: Monday's record fall, Tuesday's rebound

Markets have swung with every turn of the same 48 hours. On Monday, Brent crude settled $8.66 — yaani, about eight and two-thirds dollars off every barrel — or 7.63 per cent, lower at $104.77 a barrel, and US West Texas Intermediate settled $7.66, or 7.36 per cent, down at $96.46, as traders bet on a deal. By Tuesday, after the Qeshm strike reports, Brent had reached $106.61 a barrel by 0744 GMT, up $1.84 or 1.76 per cent, with WTI at $98.06, Reuters reported. Goldman Sachs has raised its December Brent forecast to $105 from $90, while warning Brent could reach $140 in 2027 if Gulf output stays well below its 2025 average. Qeshm Island, the largest island in the Persian Gulf, sits at the mouth of the strait and hosts a large underground missile facility, a naval base and major desalination plants — which is why even a “minor attack” there moves the world's oil price.

Source: Reuters

For Punjabi and Indian readers, a presidential confirmation is not a distant headline. Lakhs of Punjabi and Indian workers live across the Gulf states within range of any renewed exchange of strikes, Indian seafarers crew tankers that must still run the Hormuz gauntlet, and every dollar on a barrel of Brent feeds directly into fuel prices in Punjab, across India and in Canada. A war Washington described for months as finished has now been confirmed, by its own president, to have included a fresh strike on the eve of the US vote — and Gulf-based workers will be among the first to feel whether “minor” stays minor.

Source: Reuters

What happens next

Three clocks now run at once. The first is the US vote itself: Tuesday's midterm results will set how much room Trump has — and how much pressure he feels — to settle or to escalate a war that has weighed on fuel prices through the campaign. The second is the threat the president kept in reserve even while confirming a “minor attack”: speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News on Monday night, Trump warned the US could strike Iran's Pickaxe Mountain underground nuclear site “in one hour” if he chose. The third is the mediation file now physically in Tehran: if Washington answers the Qatari-carried draft, Baghaei's two-day Hormuz reopening offer becomes the test of whether Tuesday's confirmation was pressure toward a deal — or the first acknowledged step back toward open war.

Source: CNN / Reuters

Trump's Hannity interview — the “soft war” framing, the Pickaxe Mountain warning and his claim that a deal is close — was reported in full earlier: Read: Trump on Hannity — “soft war”, Pickaxe warning and an Iran deal