Breaking news: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it launched joint missile and drone operations targeting U.S. military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain after another round of American strikes on Iranian targets, widening the fragile ceasefire dispute from the Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf bases that support U.S. operations.
The claim came after U.S. Central Command said American aircraft struck multiple sites in Iran on Saturday in response to what it called continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping. CENTCOM said the latest U.S. strikes followed a one-way drone attack on the Panama-flagged tanker M/T Kiku, which was carrying more than two million barrels of crude oil near the Strait of Hormuz.
CBC News, citing Reuters, reported that the IRGC said its navy and aerospace forces had targeted U.S. military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain in response to recent U.S. strikes. The report said the U.S. military did not immediately respond to the Iranian claims.
Why this is a new development
Earlier List25 coverage tracked the tanker strike and the second U.S. strike package. The new angle is Iran’s claim that it has answered those strikes by expanding retaliation toward U.S.-linked military facilities in two Gulf states, including Bahrain, where the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based.
The Guardian reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said its navy and aerospace forces launched a joint missile and drone operation targeting U.S. military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain. The Guard said any further aggression would be met with a “crushing response,” according to the report.
CBS News separately reported that President Donald Trump threatened a much broader U.S. response after the latest strikes, writing that the United States could be “forced to militarily complete the job” if Iran did not comply with the ceasefire. Trump said the U.S. aircraft hit Iranian missile and drone storage locations and coastal radar sites.
The ceasefire is under sharper strain
The latest claims highlight how quickly the June memorandum between Washington and Tehran is being tested by the unresolved fight over who controls movement through Hormuz. The U.S. says Iran is violating the ceasefire by attacking or threatening commercial vessels. Iran says the United States is violating the agreement by striking Iranian territory and backing regional pressure against Tehran.
The stakes are not only military. The Strait of Hormuz carries a major share of global oil supply, and the U.S. bases in Bahrain and Kuwait are central to American security operations across the Gulf. Any confirmed strike on those sites would mark a serious escalation beyond ship attacks and retaliatory strikes inside Iran.
For now, the most important detail is attribution: Iran says it carried out the Kuwait and Bahrain operations, while independent confirmation of the damage and targets remains limited. That makes the next official responses from Washington, Kuwait, and Bahrain critical to whether this becomes another contained exchange or a wider Gulf escalation.
Sources: CBC News/Reuters, The Guardian, CBS News, U.S. Central Command.