Explosion heard near Iran's Qeshm Island, no damage reported
IRNA says the sound appeared to come from the sea near the Strait of Hormuz, with no damage found on the island.
Published · Updated
UpdateMonday, September 28, 2026 at 4:35 PM ET
State TV now attributes the sounds to warning shots at violating vessels, rather than an unexplained explosion.
Iran's state TV later said the sounds heard on Qeshm Island were likely warning shots fired at vessels violating the Strait of Hormuz.
An explosion was heard near Iran's Qeshm Island, with the sound reportedly coming from the sea, IRNA reported. No damage has been reported on the island, and no cause or responsibility has been given.
Qeshm sits at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, the passage through which a large share of the world's seaborne oil moves. Any unexplained blast in the area draws attention because of that location, even when, as here, nothing has been confirmed about what caused it.
The incident follows weeks of mixed signals over Iran's nuclear programme and its standoff with Washington. Trump has said US officials spoke with Iranian mediators and that the nuclear threat has already stopped, and separately has said the US will win the Iran conflict soon and predicted falling gas prices, along with a claim that inflation will end once a war with Iran is over. A US source involved in the negotiations told Al Arabiya a deal remains unlikely with gaps still wide, while Al Hadath, citing sources, reported Iran had agreed to halt uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief, a claim that conflicts with other accounts. CNN reported US officials calling the mediated talks positive and constructive. The US has also been pressing Iran to honour a Swiss-brokered pledge to allow IAEA inspectors access, even as Iran's parliament weighs a bill to leave the non-proliferation treaty altogether. Al Jazeera reported that Iran has proposed delaying its nuclear commitments until after an initial phase of any deal, with the two sides still disputing who gives up leverage first. Iraq's Hezbollah has separately threatened to shut border crossings over an Iran air embargo if it continues past October 1, according to IRIB.
With no damage reported and the cause of the blast unknown, the episode reads less as a confirmed escalation than as another unconfirmed data point layered onto an already stalled, rhetoric-heavy standoff, the kind that tends to keep a risk premium in oil prices even as traders otherwise stay in a wait-and-see mode.