Kuwait’s military said Iranian strikes that hit a terminal at its international airport caused significant damage and wounded several people. The attack came as the US and Iran exchanged fresh missile and drone strikes, further jeopardizing efforts to secure a new ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran.
Overnight, US forces fired a Hellfire missile to disable a tanker attempting to break through the American blockade of the strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, and later said they repelled Iranian reprisal strikes in the region and attacked sites on Iran’s Qeshm Island.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said it 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 (Centcom) 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 aircraft fired a missile to disable the tanker’s engine, as it passed through international waters toward Iran’s Kharg Island, north of the strait near Kuwait, after the crew ignored repeated warnings over a 24-hour period.
Soon after, Iran carried out a drone strike on a passenger terminal at Kuwait international airport, wounding several people and forcing air traffic to be suspended, Kuwaiti officials said on Wednesday.
The Kuwaiti 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.”
He did not say how many people were hurt but said those wounded had received medical care.
Kuwait’s state news agency said civil aviation authorities had suspended traffic and transferred arriving flights to alternative airports after “terminal one came under Iranian attacks causing casualties and damage”.
US forces also said they shot down three one-way attack drones “launched by Iran toward civilian mariners that were rightfully transiting regional waters” but gave no further details.
American forces also conducted strikes on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island.
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 latest exchange of strikes underline the lack of political progress in resolving the Middle East crisis, despite upbeat claims by 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.
Rubio reiterated claims on Tuesday that a deal with Tehran was within reach, and claimed the regime had agreed to negotiate aspects of its nuclear program that it had refused to discuss even a month ago.
His comments come in direct contrast to the messaging from Iran, which has indicated it will suspend peace talks with the US in protest against Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, threatening the collapse of negotiations with Washington.
The Iranian 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 a new agreement supposedly brokered by Donald 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 that he had spoken to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and representatives of Hezbollah and both 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.
The Israeli military also issued a new evacuation warning for the southern city of Nabatiyeh before new strikes, accusing the “Hezbollah terror organization” of violating the ceasefire.
The 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.
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