November ninth, the start of a new moon. According to senior officials speaking to Fox News, that is when the US military would prefer to operate, if the strikes on Iran resume. And in the same week, Iran is reportedly looking at limits on its nuclear program, after long refusing even to discuss them. I'm Sarah, he's Rich, and this is Iran War Daily for Saturday, November 7. Today: what Tehran's negotiators are said to be reviewing, another round of strikes on Qeshm Island, and a twenty-million-dollar reward for information about a program Washington says it already destroyed.
Jacob Magid, writing in The Times of Israel:
Iranian negotiators were reviewing proposals that would see Tehran curb its nuclear program after long insisting it would not even discuss the issue at the heart of the conflict, a US official and a diplomat familiar with the matter confirmed to the Times of Israel on Friday.
Yesterday we reported a senior Iranian official telling Reuters that Tehran had sent its own nuclear proposal through Qatar. This runs the other way: Qatari proposals, presented over the past week in Tehran and Doha. According to the Times of Israel, they stop short of full dismantlement, address Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium, and offer significant US sanctions relief in return. Neither government has published any of it. And Tehran is already naming its price for the next step. Ali Bagheri, deputy head of Iran's top security body, told state television on Friday that Iran isn't satisfied with "paper commitments" and wants practical US steps first. Reuters' Iranian source says Tehran's own proposal only gets discussed after Washington meets the seven demands. So who moves first? That sequencing fight hasn't budged. Not everyone calls this a breakthrough. Jason Brodsky of United Against Nuclear Iran told the paper, "Talking is not necessarily conceding." Qatar, meanwhile, has called reports that the talks had failed "false and misleading." Meanwhile Fox News, citing senior officials, says Trump discussed renewed strikes with his national security team on Thursday, and that the November ninth new moon gives the military its preferred cover of darkness. Mediators on one track, a lunar calendar on the other.
Al Jazeera, in an explainer published Saturday:
Trump confirmed the US had carried out military strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island on Friday, while Iranian state media reported two missile strikes in the Suza area of the island.
Earlier this week US officials called their strikes on the island defensive; Washington says it's targeting missile launch systems. Iran's army, through state broadcaster IRIB, claims its air defences destroyed a US MQ-9 drone over the island. Semi-official Iranian outlets reported no casualties, and Central Command told Al Jazeera only that the situation was "relatively calm." The president calls them "minor strikes," on the same day he tells reporters, "We've made a lot of progress with Iran." Qeshm sits right in the Strait of Hormuz. Every new hit there is one more thing shipowners and insurers have to price in. The detail I'd flag is what Iranians are being told to prepare for. The Times of London, quoting a Health Ministry official, reports iodine tablets being handed out to communities near nuclear facilities. "Trump can no longer be trusted," the official said. Iran's Young Journalists Club reports the same in Bushehr, home to the country's only operational nuclear power plant. The same Times report has an Iranian political journalist saying officials were told at a briefing that a US nuclear strike on Pickaxe Mountain is being seriously considered. That's one journalist describing a briefing, carried secondhand. It tells us what Iranian officials are bracing for, not what Washington has decided.
Here's ABC News in Australia:
The United States is offering a $US20 million ($29 million) reward "and possible relocation" for information about Iran's nuclear program, the US military says, despite President Donald Trump's repeated claims that it has been obliterated.
Central Command posted the offer on X on Friday evening. It runs through the State Department's Rewards for Justice program and covers facilities, equipment and personnel, including scientists. The State Department's stated reason: Iran's lack of compliance with IAEA safeguards has cost the agency "continuity of knowledge" over Iran's production and inventory of components such as centrifuges. So the program is obliterated, and also, please get in touch if you know where it is. It's the same gap the IAEA's Rafael Grossi laid out at the Security Council in late October, when he said the agency still can't verify Iran's declared nuclear material. The State Department gave no specifics on what information would earn the money. But it lands the same week Qatar's proposals reportedly take on that stockpile of highly enriched uranium. And Trump on Friday night: "They want to make a deal very badly." ABC counts that as the thirty-eighth time he has said Iran wants to resolve this since the war began on February twenty-eighth. Thirty-eight. Somebody's keeping score.
If you think we got something wrong today, or there's a corner of this war we keep missing, write to us at iranwardaily at lantern podcasts dot com. Corrections and tips both make the show sharper.
The new moon arrives Monday. So does our next episode. We'll be back on Monday, November 9, with whatever the weekend brings from Doha, Tehran and Washington. The reporting behind today's stories is linked in the show notes. Iran War Daily is a Lantern Podcast. Thanks for spending part of your Saturday with us.