WASHINGTON: US forces struck Iranian coastal radar sites on Saturday (Jun 6) after shooting down drones launched by Iran toward the Strait of Hormuz, the US military said, in the latest escalation complicating efforts to end the war between the two countries.
The US military believes the four Iranian drones were targeting regional maritime traffic, a US official told Reuters. US Central Command said on X that the US then struck Iran’s surveillance sites in Goruk and Qeshm Island, which are both on the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had targeted US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain in retaliation for US strikes and fired on four tankers attempting to cross the strait without its permission.
Kuwait’s state media said air defences were intercepting missile and drone attacks, while in Bahrain sirens sounded and residents were urged to seek shelter.
Kuwait and Bahrain condemned the strikes. Kuwait’s foreign ministry described the Iranian attacks, including the latest strike early on Saturday, as a “blatant act of aggression” that ignored international calls to halt such actions and posed a direct threat to citizens, residents, and regional security, a ministry statement said.
Iran later said it had hit US bases in both countries with ballistic missiles, but the US military said six missiles were intercepted and a seventh did not reach its target.
The US and Iran have been engaged in largely indirect negotiations to secure an interim deal to halt the three-month-old war that would leave issues including Iran’s nuclear programme to further negotiations.
But amid periodic skirmishes, a deal has remained elusive.
Tehran wants access to billions of dollars in oil revenue, waivers on sanctions on crude exports, the lifting of a U.S. blockade on its ports and leverage over the strait. Iran has effectively blocked the waterway, where about a fifth of the world’s oil transited before the war.
Iranian state media reported that Mohsin Naqvi, the interior minister of Pakistan, which has been mediating an end to the conflict, was on his way to Tehran on Saturday. There was no immediate confirmation of the report from Islamabad.
