Iran Strikes Bahrain and Kuwait After US Bombings; Warns Peace Talks at Risk
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks on Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait, retaliating against U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic. The Guard threatened a "complete halt" to negotiations to end the ongoing war if Washington continues its attacks.
The attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait come amid escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for global oil transit. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy announced Saturday it would expand a route near Oman to allow both inbound and outbound traffic, setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran.
An interim deal between the U.S. and Iran to end the war called for the Strait, which once saw a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas pass through it, to see transits resume. However, Iran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency. Tehran insists it must control passage through the waterway despite American and Gulf Arab opposition.
Early Sunday, the U.S. military's Central Command said it struck Iranian military "surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defence sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities" following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. The ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for Qatar's state-run energy company. Qatar is a key negotiator between Iran and the U.S.
In a social media post, U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. had "struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN!" He warned that at a point the U.S. might no longer be able to be reasonable "and will be forced to militarily complete the job." He added, "If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!"
The incident follows a similar back-and-forth days earlier, when an Iranian drone struck a merchant vessel off the coast of Oman on Thursday, and the U.S. military retaliated with strikes.
According to ship tracking websites, the Kiku left a Qatari oil field in the middle of the Persian Gulf earlier in the week and was bound for a port in the United Arab Emirates on the Gulf of Oman. It appeared to be using a route near Oman that serves as an alternative to the route sanctioned by Iran through its own waters.
The U.S. military said that "Iran had a chance to honour the ceasefire agreement" but "elected not to" when its forces attacked the Kiku.
After the U.S. strikes early Sunday, Kuwait's military said air defences intercepted incoming Iranian drones and missiles, offering no immediate information on damage. Kuwait hosts a major U.S. Army base. Bahrain's Foreign Ministry issued a statement denouncing what it called "a dangerous escalation that reveals that what Tehran is doing is not a passing act, nor an isolated incident, but rather a deliberate approach and a systematic pattern of repeated aggression against the sovereignty of the kingdom." Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which came under repeated attack during the war.
The Guard claimed responsibility for both attacks, saying it targeted Al Asad Air Base in Kuwait. "Let the enemy know that violating the ceasefire... will lead to a complete halt of ongoing processes," the Guard added. The Guard, which controls Iran's ballistic missile arsenal, answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei and is thought to hold greater influence in the Islamic Republic.
