At least one person has been killed and more than 60 others injured in Iranian drone strikes on Kuwait’s international airport, local officials said on Wednesday, as tensions escalate further in the Gulf region.
Kuwait’s defence ministry spokesman condemned the attack as “criminal Iranian aggression“, while the foreign ministry said diplomatic missions had also been damaged.
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility, stating the attack was retaliation for US strikes on an Iranian oil tanker and Qeshm Island. Iran also said it targeted US bases in the Gulf.
The deceased was later identified as an Indian citizen. The Indian foreign ministry condemned the attack, noting that several other Indian nationals were injured and calling upon all parties to cease such attacks.
Following the strikes, Kuwait’s foreign ministry ordered two Iranian diplomats to leave the country within 24 hours and summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires.
The US earlier said it had launched “self-defence” strikes on Iran and shot down or intercepted Iranian missiles fired at Kuwait and Bahrain. US Central Command (Centcom) said its overnight strikes on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz targeted an Iranian military ground control station “in response to attempted attacks by Iran across the Middle East”.
Centcom added that the US shot down three attack drones launched by Iran toward “civilian mariners that were rightfully transiting regional waters”, and that Iran fired two missiles at Kuwait and three at Bahrain, all of which broke apart or were intercepted.
Centcom earlier said it had struck and “disabled” an unladen oil tanker sailing towards Iran as part of the US naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, which began on 13 April. A US aircraft fired a Hellfire missile into the engine room of the Botswana-flagged vessel after its crew “ignored repeated warnings”.
The IRGC immediately vowed retaliation, stating that “disrupting the security of the Strait of Hormuz will carry a heavy price for the aggressive US military”.
The latest escalation threatens a shaky US-Iran ceasefire, as negotiations between the two sides stalled over the weekend. A deal to end the war failed to advance.
US President Donald Trump this week told his critics to “sit back and relax”, saying that Iran “really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the USA”.
US media reported that Trump had requested edits to the terms of a potential peace deal after meeting with senior aides, with changes related to the Strait of Hormuz and the removal of highly enriched uranium from Iran.
On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei denied that the nuclear programme had been on the table, adding that Washington was “constantly changing its views and putting forward new or contradictory demands”.
In an interview aired on Wednesday, Trump claimed Iran had “already agreed” to not have a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei was “involved” in the talks.
“We seem to be getting along quite well,” Trump told the Pod Force One podcast, adding that he would like to meet Khamenei. “We probably will meet at some point.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress on Tuesday that negotiators had not offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for reopening the strait, stating that any sanctions relief would be condition-based and tied to Iran’s nuclear programme.
