Iran hits Bahrain, Kuwait after US strikes, threatens ceasefire talks

Iran launched drone and missile attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait after US airstrikes. The escalation has deepened Strait of Hormuz tensions and threatened any further ceasefire talks.

In Short

• Kuwait said air defences intercepted two ballistic missiles without casualties or damage
• A Bahrain residential tower near the airport suffered heavy top-floor destruction
• Tehran warned ongoing diplomacy could stop completely if Washington kept attacking

Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait on Sunday in response to US airstrikes on the Islamic Republic, and warned that a "complete halt" could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continued its attacks.

The latest escalation came as efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without Iran's direct oversight triggered fresh tensions in the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the US Navy said on Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman to allow both inbound and outbound traffic, creating a new flashpoint with Tehran.

Iran has insisted that after the war it alone must govern the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas. The global community has long regarded the strait as an international passageway, even though it lies in the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. In recent days, Tehran has twice attacked vessels using a route on the Omani side of the strait backed by a United Nations agency.

The Kuwaiti military said its air defences intercepted incoming Iranian drones and missiles on Sunday morning, shortly after the US strikes. Kuwait, which hosts a major US army base, said it detected and intercepted two ballistic missiles, and there were no reports of injuries or damage.

In Bahrain, the Interior Ministry said the Iranian strikes damaged a residential building near the international airport, though no one was killed. The ministry released photos of an eight-storey building with its top floor completely destroyed, rubble inside and windows blown out. Bahrain is home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet, whose base there had come under repeated attack during the war, though the damaged building on Sunday was not near the fleet's headquarters in downtown Manama.

Bahrain's Foreign Ministry denounced the attack, calling it "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, and the security of its citizens and residents".

The strikes followed attacks traded by the US and Iran over the weekend. The US military's Central Command said it struck Iranian military "surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities" on Sunday after an attack on a ship at sea early on Saturday. The ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, was carrying crude oil for Qatar's state-run energy company. Qatar has been a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.

In a social media post, Trump said the US had "struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN!" He warned there could come a point when the US would no longer be able to be reasonable "and will be forced to militarily complete the job". "If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The latest exchange followed a similar one just days earlier, when an Iranian drone struck a merchant vessel off the coast of Oman on Thursday and the US military retaliated with strikes. The Guard claimed responsibility for both attacks and said it had targeted Al Asad Air Base in Kuwait. "Let the enemy know that violating the ceasefire ... will lead to a complete halt of ongoing processes," it said. The Guard, which controls Iran's ballistic missile arsenal, answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei and is believed to be wielding even greater influence in the Islamic Republic now.

The US military said that "Iran had a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement" but "elected not to" when its forces attacked the Kiku. Ship-tracking websites showed the tanker had left a Qatari oil field in the middle of the Persian Gulf earlier in the week and was headed for a port in the United Arab Emirates on the Gulf of Oman, on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz. It appeared to be using a route near the Omani coast as an alternative to the route approved by Iran through its own waters. The latest attacks on Gulf states and shipping have again underlined the central role of the Strait of Hormuz in the widening conflict between Iran and the US.

With PTI Inputs

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