Dubai: Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to US airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks.
The attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait came as a multinational maritime body overseen by the US Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic – setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran.
An interim deal between the US 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, as Tehran insists that it must control passage through the crucial waterway despite American and Gulf Arab opposition.
Early Sunday, the US 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. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the US
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 of a point where the US may 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 incident follows a similar back-and-forth that occurred just days prior, when an Iranian drone struck a merchant vessel off the coast of Oman on Thursday, and the US military retaliated with strikes.
The US says strikes were a response to an Iranian attack on an oil tanker
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 that sits on the Gulf of Oman, just on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz.
It appeared to be attempting to use a route that was established near the coast of Oman, which is serving as an alternative to the route sanctioned by Iran that runs through its own waters.
The US military said that “Iran had a chance to honour the ceasefire agreement” but “elected not to” when its forces attacked the Kiku.
After the US strikes early Sunday, Kuwait’s military said air defences intercepted incoming Iranian drones and missiles. It offered no immediate information on any damage. Kuwait is home to a major US 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, and the security of its citizens and residents.”
Bahrain is home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, whose base there 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 be wielding even greater influence now in the Islamic Republic.
