Tuesday 3 November 2026
American jets strike Iran's Qeshm Island while Qatar says the Doha talks are making progress
American officials say the United States carried out limited strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island on Monday night, after an American fighter jet was targeted by an Iranian surface to air missile and struck the missile launch platform, Axios reported. Officials told the Wall Street Journal that American forces hit radar and missile launch sites on the island, and that the United States has conducted limited strikes of this kind for several weeks without announcing them. Iran's state news agency IRNA reported two explosions on Qeshm, which sits at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump said on Monday that new strikes after the midterms are not under consideration, and that Iran wants a deal and one could happen. Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman, Majed Al Ansari, said on Tuesday that the indirect talks are making progress, that a mediation team that visited Tehran on Monday night has returned to Doha, and that both sides are closely reviewing Qatar's proposals.
The offer on the table is Iran's, and Tehran has now compressed it. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi calls it a two day plan, cut down from the seven step proposal Iran put forward in September. On the first day, the United States would lift its blockade of Iranian ports, approve a sanctions waiver for sales of Iranian crude oil and withdraw all new sanctions. On the second day, Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restore normal maritime traffic, and negotiations on the remaining issues, including Iran's nuclear program, would continue afterward. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi has been in Doha exchanging messages with Washington through the Qataris. Araghchi said Tehran has laid out all of its conditions and that the outcome now depends on Washington. Vice President JD Vance said Washington had made some progress and had set no deadline. Iranian sources told Reuters a new American attack looked more likely than a deal.
Money sits at the center of the Doha channel. Qatar is pushing for the release of more than 6 billion dollars in frozen Iranian assets, the proceeds of Iranian oil sales to South Korea that were moved into restricted Qatari accounts in September 2023 under a prisoner exchange. Washington suspended Iran's access to the money after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Trump rejected Iran's seven step proposal when Tehran first presented it in September, and no American answer to the compressed version has been made public.
The strikes and the talks are running at the same time, and each side reads the other through both. American officials described the Qeshm action as defensive, a response to an attempt on an American jet and to Iranian attacks on merchant shipping. Central Command has not officially announced the strike. Oil markets moved on the diplomacy on Monday, when West Texas Intermediate crude fell 7.36 percent to settle at 96.46 dollars, and moved back up about a dollar in early trading on Tuesday after the Qeshm reports, as of November 3.
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