Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes and threatens to halt talks to end the war

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks.

Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic, setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran.

Iran insists that after the war 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. The global community has long considered the strait an international passageway, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. In recent days, Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through a route on the Omani side of the strait backed by a United Nations agency.

The United States and Iran are still debating the terms of an interim peace deal, including issues such as getting ships through the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, removing U.S. blockades and sanctions, and addressing the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Under the memorandum of understanding signed earlier this month, the U.S. and Iran have 60 days to iron out the details. The strikes threaten to torpedo the deal before it can be finalized.

The Kuwaiti military said air defenses intercepted incoming Iranian drones and missiles Sunday morning, just after the U.S. strikes.

Kuwait, which hosts a major U.S. army base, said it had detected and intercepted two ballistic missiles and there were no reports of injuries or damage.

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 8-story building, with the top floor completely destroyed, filled with rubble and its windows blown out.

Bahrain is home to the U.S. 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 issued a statement denouncing 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 against the sovereignty of the kingdom, and the security of its citizens and residents.”

The strikes came after the US and Iran traded attacks over the weekend. The U.S. 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 negotiator between Iran and the U.S.

In a social media post, Trump said the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 follows 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 U.S. military retaliated with strikes

The Guard claimed responsibility for both attacks, saying it targeted Al Asad Air Base in Kuwait.

“Let the enemy know that violating the ceasefire ... will lead to a complete halt of ongoing processes,” the Guard added.

The Guard, which controls Iran's ballistic missile arsenal, answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei and is thought to be wielding even greater influence now in the Islamic Republic.

The U.S. military said that “Iran had a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement” but “elected not to” when its forces attacked the Kiku.

According to ship-tracking websites, the Kiku left a Qatari oil field in the middle of the Persian Gulf earlier in the week and was bound for a port in the United Arab Emirates that sits on the Gulf of Oman, just on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz.

It appeared to be attempting to use a route established near the coast of Oman, serving as an alternative to the route sanctioned by Iran that runs through its own waters.