Iran fired a missile at an American air base in Kuwait on Thursday just hours after the United States attacked the Islamic Republic, with both sides accusing the other of violating their shaky ceasefire and further imperiling diplomatic efforts to end the war.
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Kuwait shot down the ballistic missile, the American and Kuwaiti militaries said. No damage or casualties were reported.
A U.S. official said that American forces in Kuwait were the suspected target. Iran said it had targeted a U.S. base responsible for strikes late Wednesday in Bandar Abbas, an Iranian port city near the Strait of Hormuz.
Hours earlier, President Donald Trump signaled that an agreement between the two sides wasn’t close, and that he would not be rushed by either international economic pressure or the political pressure of upcoming midterm elections.
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Trump: ‘No one is going to control’ the Strait of Hormuz
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Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz — which it has effectively shut off in response to the U.S.-Israeli attack late February — has caused a global economic shock, with prices rising for oil, natural gas, fertilizer and other essential goods.
Trump also warned Oman, another U.S. ally in the region, against partnering with Iran to jointly control the strait. “Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up,” he said during a Cabinet meeting, before adding, “They understand that. They’ll be fine.”
The American military carried out strikes in the region of Bandar Abbas on Wednesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry and U.S. Central Command said.
CENTCOM said Thursday that the strikes at 10:17 p.m. Wednesday ET (6:47 a.m. local time Thursday) took out five one-way attack drones “that posed a clear threat in and near the Strait of Hormuz.” The strikes also “prevented a sixth drone launch from an Iranian ground control site in Bandar Abbas,” it said.
A U.S. official said the attacks were limited and did not represent a resumption of major combat operations, adding that the Iranian drones presented a threat to U.S. forces near the waterway and to commercial shipping transiting the area. The ground control station was targeted because a fifth drone was about to launch from there, the official said.
In retaliation, Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard said that the U.S. military base responsible for its strikes was targeted, according to a statement carried by Iranian news agencies.
Kuwait hosts a U.S. air base that Iran and its proxies have previously targeted in the 3-month-old war.
The Guard warned Thursday that any further U.S. attacks would bring a “more decisive” response and that Washington would bear responsibility for the consequences.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei condemned America’s “aggressive actions against Iran’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty,” which he said “constitute a blatant violation” of international law and the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency reported.
He “emphasized the Islamic Republic of Iran’s determination to take all necessary measures to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it said.
At a Cabinet meeting earlier Wednesday, Trump said no one was going to be allowed to control the Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20% of the world’s oil flowed before the war.
“The strait is going to be open to everybody,” he said, adding, “Nobody is going to control it.”
Some observers questioned whether Trump may have misspoken in saying he might have to “blow up” Oman, given it is a peaceful member of the Gulf Cooperation Council with which the U.S. has a free trade agreement.
But the State Department later reposted a clip of Trump’s comments on X, quoting that specific phrase.
Baghaei said Trump’s threats were “another dangerous sign of the normalization of lawlessness and coercive behavior in international relations.”
The disruption around Hormuz has threatened global supplies of food and energy, with oil prices jumping around 3% following the escalation in hostilities after having fallen on hopes of a peace deal.
Talks mediated by Pakistan and Qatar appeared close to a deal over the weekend but now again seem mired in disagreements.
Iranian state TV reported a day earlier what it said was a preliminary “unofficial” memorandum of understanding framework with the U.S.
It said the U.S. had promised to withdraw its forces from areas surrounding Iran and lift its naval blockade in exchange for Tehran restoring the number of ships passing through the waterway to prewar levels within a month.
The White House rejected the report, and Trump said later that Iran was “negotiating on fumes.”
Trump said at the Cabinet meeting that Iran “thought they were going to outwait me — ‘We’ll outwait him, he’s got the midterms,’ — I don’t care about the midterms.”
He said that “they want very much to make a deal,” adding, “So far, they haven’t gotten there. We’re not satisfied with it, but we will be — either that or we’ll have to just finish the job.”
Late Wednesday, the Trump administration also said it was imposing sanctions on a new agency Iran announced this month, the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, which aims to approve the transiting of ships through the strait and charge them tolls as high as $2 million each.
“The Iranian military’s latest attempt to extort global maritime trade is proof that Economic Fury has left the regime desperate for cash,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement, referring to a U.S. economic pressure campaign against Iran.
Another key sticking point has been the release of frozen Iranian funds, which the deputy head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council highlighted again Thursday.
“We are seeking the release of all Iranian assets frozen by America and this is the legitimate right of the Iranian people,” Ali Bagheri said, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency. “Iran’s assets must be fully returned to Iran without any conditions.”
