Fresh tensions have erupted across the Persian Gulf region after Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) launched coordinated retaliatory strikes targeting US military facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain on Sunday morning, shattering a fragile ceasefire reached between Washington and Tehran just over a week prior.
In an official statement carried by its affiliated media outlet Sepah News, the IRGC confirmed that its naval and aerospace divisions jointly launched the attack, deploying a combination of ballistic missiles and drones against eight key US infrastructure sites. These targets included the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait and positions belonging to the US Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain. The strike, the IRGC emphasized, came in direct response to earlier US airstrikes that hit five Iranian coastal outposts on the same morning.
The IRGC noted that the US carried out its initial strikes under the false pretense of responding to the IRGC Navy’s enforcement action against a vessel that violated Iranian maritime rules. The statement issued a stark warning going forward: any ships attempting unauthorized passage through the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz will face far more forceful responses than in the past, and any act of aggression carried out under any pretext will be met with a crushing counterattack.
Crucially, the IRGC pointed out that the US’s earlier strikes constituted a clear violation of the recent peace memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by Iran and the United States to end cross-regional hostilities. Any further breaches, the statement added, will result in the full termination of all ongoing diplomatic negotiations between the two countries. Per the terms of the existing MoU, Iran holds formal responsibility for managing all maritime traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s global oil supply passes daily.
Sunday’s strikes drew immediate condemnation from Kuwait, whose foreign ministry decried the attack as a repeated violation of the country’s sovereign territory that undermines regional efforts to de-escalate long-running tensions. In a public statement posted to the social platform X, the ministry called the incident a “flagrant violation” of Kuwaiti sovereignty, adding that it poses a direct threat to the country’s security, stability, and the safety of all citizens and residents living within its borders.
Bahrain also reported tangible damage from the attack: the country’s interior ministry confirmed that a residential building in Muharraq Governorate suffered structural damage, though no casualties were recorded in the incident. Authorities have already launched on-site response and inspection measures, the ministry added in its own X post.
Local Iranian media also reported multiple explosions across southern Iran’s Hormozgan province and Qeshm Island early Sunday, matching reports of follow-up US strikes. US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed in a Sunday X post that it had carried out “additional strikes against multiple targets in Iran”, framing the action as a response to an earlier IRGC drone attack targeting a Panama-flagged commercial tanker transiting near the Strait of Hormuz.
CENTCOM clarified that its latest strikes were a direct response to “continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping”, adding that US military aircraft specifically targeted Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communication networks, air defense positions, drone storage sites, and naval minelaying capabilities.
The exchange of fire is the second major escalation in as many days. On Saturday, CENTCOM launched airstrikes along Iran’s southern coast, to which the IRGC responded with its own retaliatory strike against US military positions across West Asia.
The current upsurge in violence comes just 10 days after Iran and the United States signed the initial peace MoU to end cross-regional hostilities, including an end to clashes in Lebanon. Both parties have been engaged in ongoing diplomatic negotiations to work toward a binding final peace agreement ahead of Sunday’s escalation.