Kuwait’s military said Iranian strikes that hit a terminal at its international airport killed at least one person and wounded 63 in the first deadly attack on the Gulf since a ceasefire on 8 April came into effect.
The US and Iran also exchanged fresh missile and drone strikes, further jeopardising efforts to secure a new ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran.
Donald Trump said in an interview released on Wednesday that talks with Iran were continuing and he was not looking to escalate, adding: “We don’t need boots on the ground now.”
But Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said Iran was “playing with fire” after the Kuwait attacks and Trump could order a “full-scale return to military action” if negotiations fail “It’s [Trump’s] decision: Israel is ready, and the US forces are ready,” he said.
Netanyahu also took aim at European leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron who have criticised the Israeli military campaign, saying “the way European leaders cater to radical Islamic minorities in their own countries is shameful”.
He added: “They know we’re protecting them [by attacking Iran] as well, but they don’t have the guts to stand up and line up with the right thing that will save our civilisation against these barbarians.”
Overnight, US forces fired a Hellfire missile to disable a tanker trying to break through the American blockade of the strait of Hormuz and later said they had repelled Iranian reprisal strikes and attacked sites on Iran’s Qeshm Island.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had attacked the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain with missiles and drones in response to the strike on Qeshm, a claim the US military’s Central Command denied.
The latest exchange of fire began when Centcom said it targeted an unladen tanker – the Botswana-flagged M/T Lexie – on Tuesday. Centcom said an aircraft fired a missile to disable the tanker’s engine as it passed through international waters toward Iran’s Kharg Island near Kuwait. Crew apparently ignored repeated warnings over a 24-hour period. Iran responded with the drone strike on a passenger terminal at Kuwait’s airport.
Kuwait’s defence ministry spokesperson, Brig Gen Saud Abdulaziz Al-Atwan, described the attack as “criminal Iranian aggression which resulted in significant material damage to the building and injuries”.
Kuwait’s state news agency said civil aviation authorities had suspended traffic and transferred incoming flights to alternative airports.
A statement from Iran’s foreign ministry blamed Kuwait and Bahrain for the attacks, condemning what it called the “colonialist use by the United States of the territory and infrastructure of countries in the region to advance its aggressive plans against Iran”. It said the incident “emphasises the direct and unmistakable responsibility of the leaders of Kuwait and Bahrain for last night’s acts of aggression”.
Kuwait’s deputy foreign minister, Hamad Suleiman Al-Mashaan, summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires, Hamed Hamid Yaqoubi Far, to formally protest over Iran’s continued attacks. Kuwait also ordered a reduction in Iranian embassy staff, declared two Iranian diplomats persona non grata and gave them 24 hours to leave the country, the foreign ministry said.
US forces also said they had shot down three one-way attack drones “launched by Iran toward civilian mariners that were rightfully transiting regional waters”.
The IRGC said in a statement: “Late last night, the aggressive US military struck an Iranian oil tanker near the strait of Hormuz with an aerial projectile, causing damage to the tanker’s engine room … these responses should serve as a lesson.”
The military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader threatened more missile and drone strikes should the US renew its attacks on Iran.
“Every shot fired and every attack will be met with a deluge of missiles and drones,” Mohsen Rezaee posted on X, adding that “the aggressor will swiftly be punished”.
Trump said on Wednesday he would like to meet Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. “I would like to meet him, and we probably will meet at some point, depending on how it all works out,” Trump told the New York Post’s Pod Force One podcast, adding: “I’m not hearing he’s doing great. If you believe the stories, he’s missing a lot of different parts.”
Khamenei is thought to have been seriously injured in the attack that killed his father, the former supreme leader Ali Khamenei, on the first day of the war.
The latest exchange of strikes underline the lack of political progress in resolving the Middle East crisis, despite upbeat claims from the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in his first appearance before the Senate foreign relations committee since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran.
During congressional testimony on Tuesday, Rubio said the war in Iran ‘‘is over”.
Rubio reiterated claims on Tuesday that a deal was within reach, and claimed Tehran had agreed to negotiate aspects of its nuclear programme that it had refused to discuss even a month ago.
Rubio said it was “not a guarantee that ultimately it will lead to a deal that’s acceptable”, but added: “There is the prospect before us, which could happen today, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen next week.”
His comments were in direct contrast to the messaging from Iran, which has indicated it would suspend peace talks with the US in protest against Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, threatening the collapse of negotiations with Washington.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said: “The ceasefire between Iran and the US is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts. The US and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation.”
Israeli warplanes have launched dozens of strikes across southern Lebanon despite the new agreement supposedly brokered by Trump aiming to bolster the tattered ceasefire in Lebanon.
The US president said on Monday that he had stopped an imminent Israeli strike on Beirut and had spoken to Netanyahu and representatives of Hezbollah who agreed that “all shooting will stop”.
But on Tuesday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported 30 Israeli strikes across the south. Near the city of Sidon, rescuers recovered the bodies of six members of the same family, including two children and a woman, after an Israeli strike. Lebanon also said an Israeli strike hit a location near Beirut on Wednesday
Trump confirmed reports that he had described Netanyahu as “crazy”, saying he was “a little bit perturbed” that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon was complicating US-led efforts to advance peace talks with Iran.
According to analysts, Israel wants to inflict as much damage as possible on Hezbollah before a potential peace deal with Iran stops its offensive.
Netanyahu told CNBC on Wednesday that he and Trump were aligned on the goal of disarming Hezbollah in order to achieve peace between Israel and Lebanon.
The Israeli military also issued a new evacuation warning for the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh before new strikes, accusing Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire.
The M/T Lexie is the sixth ship that the US military has disabled since its blockade of Iran began on 13 April. The US military said it had so far redirected 122 vessels that were seeking to enter or exit Iranian ports.
Over the weekend, US forces hit Iranian radar and drone sites, to which Tehran responded by targeting a military base in Kuwait that it claimed was involved in the US operation.
Meanwhile, despite the ceasefire in Gaza, Israel has continued to launch attacks on the strip. Israeli strikes killed three Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday, health officials said, and the Palestinian militant group Hamas said an end to such attacks was crucial to further talks on safeguarding a US-brokered ceasefire.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
