Supreme leader since March, never once seen in public, and on Saturday his office said Mojtaba Khamenei sat down with his top generals for the first time on record. And the message from that room was that if Iran gets hit again, the response won't stop at any border. Two days before the American vote. You're listening to Iran War Daily. It's Sunday, November 1. Today: Khamenei's orders and how Washington answered them, Tehran's message from the Doha talks, and fresh Bloomberg reporting that cuts against the record month at sea we told you about yesterday.
Dawn, compiling agency reports from Tehran:
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei on Saturday warned the United States and Israel that any new attacks would draw an immediate response without geographical limits, as regional mediators sought to avert renewed fighting after the US midterm elections.
The statement went out on Khamenei's official Telegram account. According to the reports, he met the armed forces chief of staff, Ali Abdollahi, army chief Amir Hatami and the Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Vahidi, and ordered them to update Iran's target list to include, quote, "all types of tangible and intangible assets belonging to the American-Zionist enemy." That's a written statement and a reported meeting. Nobody has put this man on camera. Still, telling your generals to widen the target list is a very specific instruction. Washington's answers on Saturday pointed in more than one direction. At the G20 foreign ministers' meeting in Atlanta, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of the president, "He hasn't made a decision," and told reporters, "we would prefer to do it peacefully." He set no timeframe for the mediated talks. Then Trump, at his Florida residence, per AFP: "We've knocked out their nuclear. We still have to take care of, I would say one or two sites, but we can do that in 10 minutes." He named Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected underground nuclear complex. Iran's government denies any nuclear work happens there. And on the talks: "going fine but you know they're not very reliable." So the war is almost won, there's a strike that takes ten minutes, and nobody's in a hurry. There's also an Israeli angle. The Wall Street Journal, as relayed by Iran International, reports Trump and Netanyahu spoke by phone Saturday, after a White House meeting earlier in the week where Trump consulted military commanders on options for restarting major combat. One more from this morning. Iran International says Iran's Foreign Ministry has designated Britain's Royal Navy and Royal Air Force as "terrorist organizations" and labelled MI6 a "hostile group." Tehran calls it reciprocal, citing British bases used during the war and Britain putting the Guards under its State Threats Act in July.
Xinhua, datelined Doha and carried by China Economic Net:
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said that Tehran currently has no plans to meet with U.S. officials, while consultations with Qatari and Pakistani mediators continue over Iran's conditions for resolving the crisis, Qatar's Al Jazeera reported Saturday.
Yesterday we flagged a claim from Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that an American delegation would join Iranian officials in Doha. Araghchi dismissed reports of possible meetings as media speculation. In his words to Al Jazeera, "We see no need to meet with the Americans at present." He said Iran will decide on direct or indirect talks only after Washington accepts its conditions. And here's the shopping list, according to Araghchi. Recognition of a Hormuz shipping route Iran worked out with Oman, with the other routes closed. Lifting of sanctions imposed after the Islamabad memorandum. Fewer US forces in the region. Oil waivers back. Every frozen Iranian dollar released, including money held in Qatar. And an end to fighting on all fronts, Lebanon included. The nuclear file, the one thing Washington says it cares about most, is parked in what he calls a second phase. There is one concrete change. Araghchi said the Qatari talks cut the time to reopen the strait under Iran's proposal from five days to two. Dawn reports Tehran had found Qatar's own seven-day trust-building plan from a week earlier unsatisfactory. Then the Vance letter. Araghchi called the American effort to open the door to dialogue "a positive step," and in the same breath warned that if the aim is "to stir up discord, it would be yet another mistake." Mohsen Rezaei, the security chief the letter was addressed to, told state TV, "I read the letter. I haven't yet responded. Their tone has completely changed." He called that a good sign. Rezaei also drew a hard line, per Xinhua: "unless our conditions are met, the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened, and we will not enter into negotiations." And the neighbors are scared. Egypt's foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain: "The second round will be more dangerous, more destructive, and it will lead to nowhere."
Gerry Doyle of Bloomberg, in a report carried by gCaptain:
Although there have been a record of at least 28 open-source reports of damage to shipping in the strait in October, Iran has not increased its volume of attacks, according to a US official with direct knowledge of the matter.
Yesterday we reported October as the war's worst month for attacks on ships, based on UK Maritime Trade Operations data. This US official offers a different explanation: more serious damage means more incidents get flagged. A quarter of the reports in the first two weeks of October involved strikes on engine rooms, which can take a ship out of service. The same official says no ship has struck a floating mine in the strait, even though Iran keeps claiming mine hits. Bloomberg's frame is that both sides are bleeding. The blockade has choked off Iran's oil exports and hobbled a 300-billion-dollar economy. On the American side, the risk premium keeps fuel prices high right before an election. Bloomberg says that in early October, hiring a supertanker cost more in some places than launching a rocket into space. The human cost is real. The International Maritime Organization estimates 121 incidents in Hormuz and the wider region since the war began, with 24 confirmed seafarer deaths. And the weekend didn't help. Qatar News Agency said Sunday that the LNG carrier Al Mayeda, owned by Qatar Gas Transport Company, was hit by "unidentified objects" on Friday evening while crossing Gulf waters. No crew injuries, no environmental impact, and the company says the ship is in a safe condition and still operating. Nobody has said who did it. Qatar, remember, is itself mediating these talks. Also Saturday, Iran's navy claimed, via the Fars news agency, that another tanker hit mines and caught fire east of the strait. That hasn't been verified. And Iranian authorities said a US drone bombed two fishing boats south of Qeshm Island, wounding fishermen. That's Iran's account, and we've seen no US response. Meanwhile CENTCOM says its blockade has now redirected 144 vessels, and Treasury Secretary Bessent posted that transit levels are back to prewar levels, minus Iranian barrels. Same strait, two very different scorecards.
A note before we close. If there's a front in this war you think we're missing, or a claim you think we framed wrong, write to us at iranwardaily at lantern podcasts dot com. Corrections and story tips both help.
Tomorrow I want to know who claims the hit on that Qatari gas carrier, if anyone does. And I'll be watching whether Iran sends any reply to the Vance letter before Tuesday's vote. We're back tomorrow, Monday, November 2. Iran War Daily comes to you from Lantern Podcasts. Take care of yourselves.