US says Iran fired seven ballistic missiles at Kuwait and Bahrain in Gulf escalation

US military officials said Iran launched seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain on Saturday, in a sharp escalation of tensions across the Gulf. According to the officials, US forces intercepted six of the missiles and a seventh failed to reach its target. Kuwait's military said early on Saturday that it was responding to hostile missile and drone attacks, without saying where they came from.

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Central Command said the missile launch came hours after US forces shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones that had been launched toward the Strait of Hormuz. It said US forces later struck Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites in Goruk and on Qeshm Island. The command said its initial assessment was that six of the missiles were intercepted and one did not reach the intended target.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had hit enemy bases in the Gulf. State broadcaster IRIB quoted the Guards as saying the strikes came after what it described as a US invasion of Sirik and Qeshm Island. The competing accounts could not be independently verified from the supplied material.

The exchange points to a fast-moving cycle of attack and retaliation involving Iranian forces, US military units and Gulf states. The incident matters because it directly involves Kuwait and Bahrain, two Gulf states that host strategic military and security interests and sit close to key maritime routes. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most sensitive chokepoints for energy and military traffic, and the supplied material places both drones and missiles in that wider area.

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Any sustained exchange in this region raises the risk of wider disruption beyond the immediate targets. The row also comes against the backdrop of a broader Iran-US confrontation in the Gulf, with CENTCOM describing both drone interceptions and retaliatory strikes on Iranian radar sites. The supplied material does not give a full account of damage on the ground, but it does show that the exchange moved beyond rhetoric into direct military action.

Kuwait's separate statement that it was responding to hostile missile and drone attacks suggests local forces were also on alert. There are still important gaps in the picture. The supplied material does not confirm whether the missiles caused casualties or damage, and it does not specify the exact targets in Kuwait or Bahrain.

It is also unclear how long the exchange continued after the initial interceptions and strikes, and whether further military responses followed.

#Iran #Kuwait #Bahrain #ballisticmissiles #CENTCOM

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