Iran targets sites in Bahrain, Kuwait after wave of US strikes

(Reuters) –

July 8 Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they targeted U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait on Wednesday after the U.S. launched a wave of military strikes on Iran in response to attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

In the latest blow to the fragile ceasefire agreement, ​the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it carried out a joint missile and drone operation against key U.S. military sites in Bandar Salman, Bahrain’s Fifth Naval District and Ali Al Salem Air ‌Base in Kuwait, and shot down a U.S. MQ9 drone attempting to interfere in the operation.

Air raid sirens sounded in Bahrain and Kuwait, officials said. The Kuwaiti army said air defences were confronting “hostile” missile and drone attacks.

The U.S. earlier unleashed fresh military strikes and revoked a licence allowing Iran to sell oil in response to attacks on three tankers in the strait.

The U.S. Central Command said more than 60 small boats of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were among the targets hit, in a bid to impose a heavy cost ​on Iran for strikes on shipping in violation of the ceasefire.

“The unwarranted aggression by Iranian forces is a clear and dangerous violation of the ceasefire and undermines freedom of navigation,” CENTCOM said in a statement.

Iran’s ​top joint military command, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, condemned the U.S. strikes as a “blatant act of aggression,” threatened a “crushing response,” and warned that Tehran would not allow U.S. interference ⁠in the management of the strait.

A top Iranian negotiator, parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, accused the U.S. of breaching the ceasefire agreement. He cited not only the latest U.S. military strikes, but renewed oil sanctions, violations of Iranian “adjustments” in the ​Strait of Hormuz, and Israeli attacks against Lebanon.

“The era of bullying and extortion is over,” Qalibaf said in a post on X. “We don’t fold.”

Iranian media earlier reported explosions in Iran’s main oil hub of Kharg Island, on Qeshm Island and in ​the southern port cities of Sirik and Bandar Abbas.