Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has revealed that it targeted an American air base in the region after the US launched fresh attacks on Southern Iran overnight.
The IRGC did not disclose the location of the base, but Kuwait, which hosts a US base, revealed that it intercepted a “hostile missiles and drones threat”.
According to the US military, Iran launched a ballistic missile towards Kuwait that was successfully intercepted by Kuwaiti forces, without specifying whether it was aimed at its military base.
The Iranian missiles come after the US struck Iranian drones over the Strait of Hormuz and a military site in Bandar Abbas, a strategic port city in southern Iran.
However, the renewed hostilities threaten a fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran.
The US had struck Iran for the second time in three days, tagging the strikes as self-defence. The state broadcaster IRIB revealed that the US air base was attacked in the early hours of Thursday morning and targeted the site as it was the source of earlier US strikes on Iran.
The United States Central Command (Centcom) said Iran’s attack on Kuwait was an “egregious ceasefire violation” that occurred “hours after Iranian forces launched five one-way attack drones that posed a clear threat in and near the Strait of Hormuz”.
It said all the drones were intercepted and that a sixth drone launched from an Iranian ground control site in Bandar Abbas was also prevented.
Centcom described its actions as “measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire”.
Meanwhile, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baqai, condemned the US strikes and tagged them as a violation of the ceasefire.
He added that the Islamic Republic would “take all necessary measures to defend its national sovereignty”, according to quotes cited by IRIB.
Kuwait’s foreign affairs ministry strongly condemned what it termed “criminal Iranian attacks that targeted its territory.
Earlier this week, the US confirmed a previous round of “self-defence” strikes on southern Iran on Monday in which they targeted Iranian missile sites and boats attempting to lay mines in the Strait, where thousands of commercial tanker ships are stranded as a result of the conflict.
Centcom said those strikes were designed to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.
The US also imposed sanctions on the “Persian Gulf Strait Authority”, the Iranian body tasked with collecting payments from ships travelling through the Strait of Hormuz.
The US Treasury Department said in a statement that any ships that pay the authority could also be exposed to the risk of sanctions.