Pezeshkian calls explosions on Qeshm a US war crime, speaking from a summit stage in Delhi

The Jerusalem Post’s live blog, updating on 13 September, reported explosions on Qeshm Island in Hormozgan province and an accusation by President Masoud Pezeshkian that the United States had committed war crimes. What is not established is what exploded. Local authorities had not confirmed damage or casualties at the time of reporting, the sound was speculated to have come from the sea, and there is no US or CENTCOM confirmation of a strike. Pezeshkian made the charge while attending the BRICS summit in New Delhi on 12 September, which tells you something about the intended audience. His argument is not new: speaking to IRIB on 8 August, as carried by Gulf News, he said Iran sought neither war nor territorial expansion but would not yield to “coercion”, and accused Washington of using Gulf bases against Iran and of trying to split Tehran from its neighbours.

The pattern is the story. On 8 August, Gulf News reported two Qeshm blasts that the semi-official Tasnim attributed to Iranian forces engaging “hostile enemy targets” at the entrance to the strait. On 13 August, TRT World reported that IRNA said residents of Bandar Abbas and Qeshm heard blasts shortly before 4am, with Mehr subsequently saying a site near Qeshm had been struck at around 03:40 and calling it a US attack. On 19 May, Tasnim attributed blasts to the neutralisation of unexploded enemy ordnance. Air defence, an American strike, and disposal of old munitions: three framings from the same state and semi-official ecosystem in four months, for events at the same location. Today’s accusation lands on top of that record.

Assessment: An unconfirmed explosion attributed by a head of state from a foreign summit podium is a diplomatic act, not a battlefield report, and should be filed as such until something independent corroborates it. That does not make it false. It makes it unusable as evidence of what the United States did on Saturday night. The more durable point is that Iran’s own attribution machinery has burned its credibility on Qeshm specifically — which is a cost to Tehran on the day it most needs to be believed, with GCC diplomats due in Oman on Monday to discuss a temporary arrangement for the strait these explosions keep punctuating.