World
Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end negotiations
Iran launched drone and missile attacks Sunday morning targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to early morning US airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” in negotiations to end the war if Washington continued its attacks.
Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without Iran’s direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region and have imperiled negotiations for a lasting ceasefire. A multinational maritime body overseen by the US Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman for both inbound and outbound traffic, setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran.
The global community has long considered the strait an international passageway, despite its sitting in Iran’s and Oman’s territorial waters. In recent days, Iran has twice attacked vessels going through a route on the Omani side of the strait backed by a United Nations agency.
Iran insists that 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.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated the claim during a state visit to Iraq on Sunday.
“Any interference in this matter, any attempt to establish new or separate arrangements from those currently being carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will only lead to further complications, delay the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and increase the level of tension, just as over the past two nights we witnessed incidents in the Strait of Hormuz that led to an increase in tension and confrontation,” he said in Baghdad.
The United States and Iran are still debating the terms of an interim peace deal, including shipping arrangements through the strait, removing a US blockade and sanctions and addressing the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
Under the memorandum of understanding signed earlier this month, the US and Iran have 60 days to iron out the details, though the continued tit-for-tat strikes threaten to torpedo the deal before it can be finalized.
Bahrain, Kuwait slam Iranian ‘aggression’
The Kuwaiti military said air defenses intercepted incoming Iranian drones and missiles Sunday morning, just after the US strikes.
Kuwait, which hosts a major US Army base, said it had detected and intercepted two ballistic missiles and there were no reports of injuries or damage.
Kuwait’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it “expresses its condemnation and denunciation of… in the strongest terms, the recurrence of Iran’s heinous aggression against the State of Kuwait, the latest of which was at dawn today, in a flagrant violation of its sovereignty.”
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said the Iranian strikes damaged a residential building near the international airport and no one was killed.
The ministry released photos of an eight-story building, with the top floor destroyed, filled with rubble and its windows blown out.
Bahrain Ministry of Interior reports material damage to a residential building in Muharraq Governorate following an Iranian attack.
No casualties reported. Authorities are on-site.#Bahrain ????????
Source: @moi_bahrainhttps://t.co/nkpgHup0fW pic.twitter.com/Cvb5HdD327
— Shin (@hey_itsmyturn) June 28, 2026
Bahrain is home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, whose base there came under repeated attack during the war. The damaged building on Sunday was not near the fleet’s headquarters, in downtown Manama.
Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry denounced 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.”
Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for both attacks.
Trump accuses Iran of violating ceasefire with ship attack
The latest strikes came after the US and Iran traded attacks earlier in 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, 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 mediator 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 followed 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.
