Hormuz skirmishes escalate... and Centcom denies destroying its radar

Skirmishes escalated near the Strait of Hormuz on Friday. The US Central Command (Centcom) denied allegations by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard of destroying an American early warning radar in Bahrain, and said that US forces shot down two attack drones launched by the Guard towards the Kingdom, “without casualties or damage.”

The Guards had said that their attack came in response to a raid on the city of Sirik. At the same time, the Guard announced that a ship transporting liquefied gas had exploded in a sea mine east of the strait, and the Iranian army said that it had shot down an American MQ-1 drone.

Centcom responded to the Iranian statement with a post on the X platform under the titles “The Claim” and “The Truth,” and said that the “Guards” launched two unidirectional attack drones that “were shot down by American forces.”

The Revolutionary Guard announced, in a statement carried by official media, that its missile unit “targeted an early warning radar belonging to the American aggressors on Bahrain Island and destroyed it” on Friday morning. He said that the attack came in response to a US air strike, on Thursday night, on a communications tower in the city of Sirik in Hormozgan Province, near the eastern entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.

The statement described the attack as “a serious warning to the aggressor enemy to stop its air provocations and oil smuggling operations in the Strait of Hormuz.” He said that the missile unit in the “Guards” would be on full alert for “a confrontation without borders” if what he called “violations and attacks” were repeated.

On Thursday, the official IRNA news agency reported from official sources that Serik was subjected to a “hostile” raid of a military nature, without specifying the implementing party or the extent of the damage. This was preceded by reports of hearing explosions in the area.

On Friday, the Iranian army announced that it had shot down an American MQ-1 drone in the Kohestak region, using a new defense system belonging to its navy. IRNA published pictures that it said were of the drone’s wreckage. Centcom did not comment on this announcement.

Incidents have been occurring in southern Iran for days. On Saturday, IRNA reported that explosions were heard in Qeshm, Sirik, Jask and Bandar Abbas, without specifying their causes. Last week, US President Donald Trump announced that Washington targeted an air defense facility on Qeshm Island with a “limited attack.”

The intensity of confrontations has decreased since April, but the exchange of strikes has not stopped. Friday's announcement is the first claim from the Revolutionary Guards to target a US military facility in a Gulf country since the beginning of September, according to Reuters.

This week, the Commander of the Fifth Fleet, Admiral Kurt Renshaw, concluded a visit to Israel during which he met with the Commander of the Israeli Navy, Eyal Harel. The Israeli army said that the talks dealt with the security of sea lanes, coordination between fleets, and the exchange of technical expertise.

The Revolutionary Guards Marine Unit announced on Friday that a ship transporting liquefied gas exploded and caught fire after colliding with a sea mine east of the Strait of Hormuz.

She said that the ship “ignored repeated warnings,” attempted to cross the southern route, which Tehran considers “unpermissible and dangerous,” and “chose to protect American fighters for the crossing.” The statement did not mention the name of the ship, its nationality, or the fate of its crew, and independent parties did not confirm the Iranian account.

The unit warned that any ship that violates “Iranian rules” in the strait “will meet the same fate as previous ships.”

On Thursday, she announced that two giant tankers carrying, according to her account, “more than four million barrels” exploded on Wednesday night. On the same day, the Iranian army said that two other tankers caught fire after colliding with a mine. On Sunday, the Guard announced that fires had broken out in three tankers, without mentioning their identities.

The details of Iranian accounts do not always match what is recorded by maritime surveillance authorities. The British Maritime Trade Operations Authority reported that a tanker caught fire on Saturday off Oman’s Khasab and its crew was evacuated, and a second tanker was hit by an “unidentified projectile.” The company "Embry" said that, on Wednesday, a projectile hit a commercial ship northwest of Ras Al Khaimah and ignited a fire in its engine room.

Washington says it has removed mines from the corridors of the Strait, but the Revolutionary Guard denies this. On Wednesday, three sources told Reuters that Iran attacked maritime navigation systems on the Omani island of Didamar, without the extent of the damage being clear.

Iran has imposed restrictions on the crossing of Hormuz since the start of the US-Israeli war on February 28. The United States responded by blockading Iranian ports and escorting commercial ships during transit. Centcom said last month that it had helped Gulf states export 1.5 billion barrels of oil through the strait since the summer.

The scandal of tampering with the funds of depositors in investment funds in Turkey had a negative impact on the popularity of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party, amid controversy over “renewing the elections” to open the way for him to run for a new presidential term.

Recent opinion polls showed that the “funds scandal” damaged the popularity of the Justice and Development Party by about 4 percent. The results of a poll conducted by the “Arida” company, published by the “Yeni Safak” newspaper, which is close to the ruling party, revealed that if we go to parliamentary elections now, the “Justice and Development Party” will receive 31.3 votes.

Compared to the results of the poll, which was conducted in late October, the party’s support rate declined by about 4 percent, compared to 35 percent last August, before the Turkish opposition scandal erupted.

The investigations, which are still ongoing, revealed the involvement of a number of figures associated with the ruling party, led by the party’s vice president, Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, who was decided to be imprisoned last week and dismissed from the party, against the backdrop of her and her husband, Elias Kaya, making illegal profits exceeding two billion liras in just 4 months, from an investment fund, and withdrawing the money a few days before the Capital Market Authority filed a complaint about fraud, on September 16th.

On the other hand, the results of the poll showed an increase in the popularity of the “New Party,” the main opposition party led by Ozgur Ozil, which was founded last July, by more than 7 percent, to 23.1 percent, compared to 16 percent in August.

In another poll, conducted by Unilem, 15 percent of those who previously said that they would vote for the Justice and Development Party, and 44 percent of undecided voters, reported that their tendency to vote for the party had declined due to the investment funds scandal.

In answer to a question for survey participants about the credibility of the allegations that some Justice and Development Party officials illegally benefited from manipulating the funds’ funds, 72 percent of them confirmed that the allegations were credible, compared to 10 percent who saw them as allegations that did not enjoy credibility.

65 percent of the survey participants confirmed that they were not “at all” convinced, or not convinced, by the statements of ruling party officials regarding the funds scandal, compared to 12.4 percent who expressed their conviction in them.

42 percent believed that the government was responsible for the funds scandal, compared to 32 percent who held the bodies supervising the money market responsible.

The Unilem poll, which was conducted across Turkey between October 21 and 28, included a section on the presidential elections, indicating that they will not be decided in the first round, and no candidate will be able to obtain “50 + 1 percent” of the voters’ votes.

The poll presented two separate scenarios for competition in the presidential election runoff. The first scenario relates to a possible confrontation between the mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavash, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and its results showed that Yavash obtained 47.8 percent of the votes, compared to 37.6 percent for Erdogan, while 12.1 percent of the participants expressed their intention to boycott the elections, and the percentage of those who were hesitant to choose between the candidates was 2.6 percent.

As for the second scenario, it assumes that the runoff will be between the leader of the opposition, head of the “New Party,” Ozgur Ozil, and President Erdogan. Ozil will win the elections by 43.2 percent, while Erdogan will get 39.2 percent, and in this case he will boycott the elections by 14.3 percent, while the percentage of those hesitant to vote for either of them is 3.3 percent.

The Justice and Development Party and its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party, are seeking to re-nominate Erdogan for the presidential elections scheduled for 2028, by “renewing the elections” with the approval of 360 of the 600 parliamentarians, and moving the date forward from May 7 to April 16 of that year, to overcome the constitutional obstacle that prevents him from running for elections again.

In a related context, the Istanbul Criminal Court decided to postpone consideration of the corruption case related to the Istanbul municipality, in which the mayor and the opposition presidential candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu, and 435 others, including 46 defendants in detention, are being tried, until next January 4.

At the conclusion of its 108th session, which lasted until late Thursday night - Friday, the court issued a temporary ruling to release Mehmet Pahlawan, the lawyer for Imamoglu, and 7 directors and officials of various departments in the Istanbul municipality, and rejected the public prosecution’s request to continue detaining all the accused.

The Turkish opposition says that the trial is “political,” and that the public prosecution was unable to provide a single conclusive piece of evidence in the nearly 4,000-page indictment, while the government denies its interference in the work of the judiciary.

During the trial sessions, Imamoglu said, “Erdogan is the biggest loser in this trial, and by arresting and imprisoning him, Erdogan announced to the whole world that he cannot defeat him at the ballot boxes.”

The head of the Israeli Mossad, Roman Goffman, is holding talks in Washington, on Friday, with senior officials in the administration of US President Donald Trump regarding the war on Iran, according to the Axios website, citing three informed sources.

Goffman, one of the closest associates of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meets with CIA Director John Ratcliffe. One of the sources said that he is expected to go to Miami after that to meet with US envoy Steve Witkoff. Trump has so far refused to return to fighting.

Netanyahu is pressuring Trump to resume the war. An American official said that the two men discussed the war in a phone call on November 5.

Netanyahu is facing an internal crisis after losing his majority in the Knesset in the October 27 elections. His rival, Gadi Eisenkot, was tasked with forming the government, but it was not clear whether he would succeed in doing so. If he succeeds, Netanyahu will be out of power.

Opposition leaders fear that Netanyahu will try to launch an attack on Iran, or lure it into attacking Israel, to obstruct Eisenkot's efforts, according to sources who spoke to Axios.

Netanyahu met with Eisenkot on Thursday for two hours, and informed him of the situation with Iran. A source close to Eisenkot said that he does not believe that the current situation calls for immediate military action against Iran.

Eisenkot had sent a letter to Netanyahu in which he warned him that “activating the security forces without an immediate and direct threat... could lead to serious consequences for Israeli democracy.” Defense Minister Israel Katz responded that the government “does not need approval from the opposition or any legal body” to carry out strikes.

The Financial Times reported that Netanyahu calls Trump daily to pressure him to resume the war. This came a day after Trump said: “We do not need an agreement with Iran.”