Reports of continuous explosions on Iran’s Qeshm Island surfaced Monday, with the nearby Strait of Hormuz handling about one-quarter of global seaborne oil trade last year.
Radio Farda said IRNA described the blasts as continuous on Monday. The outlet attributed to IRNA an assessment that the force of the blasts suggested something may have struck within Qeshm. Radio Farda also reported that residents, as cited by IRNA, said they saw two aircraft over the island.
Radio Farda and Hindustan Times reported Iranian authorities had not publicly identified what caused the sounds by the time of their reports. In separate reports later Monday, IRNA carried Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claims that two U.S. MQM-170 reconnaissance drones had been captured over southern Qeshm and an MQ-9 had been downed east of the Strait of Hormuz. Those reports did not link the military claims to the explosions.
The waterway links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. IEA figures put average 2025 flows at 20 million barrels a day for oil and oil products, or roughly a quarter of global seaborne trade.
