Fighting in the Persian Gulf continued Sunday as Iran attacked US military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain following a night of American strikes on targets in Iran.
The Kuwaiti military said its air defense systems had intercepted Iranian missiles and drones as air raid sirens sounded in parts of the country. Kuwait has faced repeated Iranian attacks in recent days, with power plants and desalination facilities among the targets of missiles and drones. Sirens also sounded in Bahrain, where authorities reported intercepting an Iranian attack over the country.
Iran's military said it had launched a new wave of drone attacks against US targets in Kuwait early Sunday, targeting an ammunition depot at Camp Udairi as well as personnel and equipment facilities at Ali Al Salem Air Base. The statement said the attacks were part of the 17th phase of Operation "Sajja" and followed strikes on US targets in Kuwait that began early Saturday morning.
The latest escalation came after two US service members were reported killed and another listed as missing following an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in eastern Jordan. US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said after the attack that the deaths of the service members would only "harden our resolve."
"US troops will flee"
Alongside its attacks on Gulf states, Tehran continued to issue stark threats over any further escalation with Washington. A senior Iranian politician warned US troops Sunday in response to a written message from Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, saying American forces would flee if they understood what Khamenei meant by "unforgettable lessons."
"If American soldiers knew what the leader meant by 'unforgettable lessons' for them, they would not waste even a second before fleeing," Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, wrote on X. Khamenei said in a written message Saturday that "the Iranian nation has unforgettable lessons for the American enemy."
Another Iranian politician warned of a possible US ground invasion of southern Iran. Abbas Papizadeh said the United States could seek to launch a ground offensive against Iran from the south, west and east after first seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz. "The scenario the United States has placed on its agenda is first to take the Strait of Hormuz from the Islamic Republic," Papizadeh told Iran's ILNA news agency Sunday.
Papizadeh said that once Washington had secured oil shipments to the United States and its allies, it would "plan a ground offensive from the south, west and east of the country." "The United States will eventually target almost all of Iran's provinces," he added.
Meanwhile, signs of the strain caused by US attacks on civilian infrastructure in southern Iran were beginning to emerge. Long lines for fuel were reported in the country's southern and eastern provinces. A video published by the Iran International news network showed a vast line of cars outside a gas station in Iranshahr, in Sistan and Baluchestan province in southeastern Iran.
