Iran strikes US Gulf sites in Kuwait, Bahrain as Hormuz truce teeters

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired missiles and drones at US-linked sites in the Gulf in the early hours of June 28, with Kuwait and Bahrain both reporting incoming projectiles over their territory, in a retaliation that has driven the fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran to the brink of collapse. The barrage, which the IRGC said was launched between roughly 2 and 3 a.m. local time, was the force's answer to American airstrikes two days earlier and marks the first time Iran has struck at targets inside neighboring Gulf states during the current standoff.

Why it matters

For ten days markets, shippers and Gulf governments had treated the June 17 ceasefire as durable enough to send tankers streaming back through the Strait of Hormuz and to drive oil prices to multi-month lows. A round of tit-for-tat strikes — a drone on a cargo ship, US bombs on Iranian sites, then Iranian missiles falling on two American partner states — has now punctured that assumption in a single weekend. The danger is less a deliberate return to full-scale war than an escalation neither side fully controls: each move is calibrated to look like enforcement rather than aggression, but the chokepoint at issue carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil, and the mechanics of reopening it remain unsettled. Whether the 60-day clock keeps running now hinges on how far Tehran's promised 'broader' retaliation goes, and whether Washington treats the Gulf-state strikes as a line crossed.

Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, condemned the attack as 'a serious violation of sovereignty and international law,' and reported drone strikes on its territory. Kuwait also said projectiles had entered its airspace. The IRGC framed the operation as a measured reprisal and issued a pointed warning: 'In the event of repeated aggression, our response will be broader than this.' There were no immediate confirmed reports of casualties.

The exchange is the culmination of a rapidly escalating sequence that began on June 25, when an IRGC drone struck the Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged cargo ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The drone hit the vessel's bridge, causing damage but no casualties, and the ship continued on its way. President Donald Trump said Iran had launched four drones at the vessel, three of which were intercepted, and called the attack a 'foolish violation' of the ceasefire.

In response, US Central Command carried out strikes on June 26 against four Iranian targets — missile and drone-storage facilities and coastal radar positions concentrated near the southern town of Sirik and on Qeshm Island, which commands the narrow waterway. CENTCOM said Iran had been 'given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to,' describing the operation as a powerful but contained reply. Iran's overnight missile and drone launches on June 28 were the direct counter to that strike.

The rhetoric from Washington has hardened in step with the military moves. Vice President JD Vance said that 'if they have disagreements, they can pick up the phone. But violence will be met with violence,' while Trump called the renewed Iranian fire a foolish breach that would carry consequences. Tehran, for its part, insists the United States struck first by attacking Iranian soil and says its response was proportionate and lawful.

All of this unfolds against a memorandum of understanding signed on June 17 that was meant to wind the conflict down. Brokered with mediation from Qatar and Pakistan, the accord extended an already shaky ceasefire for at least 60 days, called for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a halt to hostilities across the region, and a period in which Iran would use its 'best efforts' to ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels. Trump signed the document during a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron after the G7 summit.

But the agreement left critical questions unanswered, and those gaps have become the friction points. Washington wants ships to use a southern route hugging the Omani coast; Tehran has insisted on a northern passage requiring its permission and has not ruled out levying tolls once the 60-day window closes. Each transit through the strait has therefore become a potential trigger, and the Ever Lovely strike showed how a single drone against a single ship can reignite direct fire between the two militaries.

The Strait of Hormuz is among the most strategically sensitive waterways on earth, carrying roughly a fifth of global oil supply, and Iran's threats to close it have long been its most potent form of leverage. In the days after the June 17 deal, daily tanker transits surged and Gulf exports recovered toward three-quarters of their prewar levels, sending crude prices sliding back toward levels last seen before the war — Brent dipped to around $74 a barrel by Friday, its lowest since late February.

That calm now faces its first real reversal. With futures markets closed over the weekend, traders will not be able to react to the Gulf-state strikes until they reopen, and analysts expect oil to gap higher if the escalation appears to threaten the reopening of the strait. The coming days will determine whether this weekend's exchanges were a bounded round of enforcement — each side signaling that violations carry a cost — or the moment a truce that has held, barely, for less than two weeks began to come apart.

Iran strikes US Gulf sites in Kuwait, Bahrain as Hormuz truce teeters

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