Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced early Wednesday that its naval and aerospace units carried out a joint missile and drone assault on American military installations in Bahrain and Kuwait, marking a dangerous new escalation just over a week after a ceasefire had appeared to take hold.

In a statement carried by state broadcaster IRIB, the IRGC said its forces struck 85 targets at what it called key US military facilities in the two Gulf states, including the US Fifth Fleet headquarters at Bahrain’s Salman Port and the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. The IRGC also claimed to have downed a US MQ-9 Reaper drone over southern Iranian territory. Al Jazeera

The Kuwaiti army confirmed on X that its air defense systems were actively intercepting missile and drone attacks, though it did not specify the point of origin. The army noted that any explosions residents might hear were the result of its defense systems neutralizing the incoming threats, not the strikes themselves landing.

The overnight Iranian barrage came in direct response to a wave of American strikes hours earlier. US Central Command announced it had hit more than 80 targets inside Iran, describing the operation as an immediate response to Iranian attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM said the strikes targeted air defense systems, command-and-control networks, coastal radar sites, and antiship missile capabilities, with more than 60 IRGC small boats also hit. The command added that its forces remain postured to hold Iran accountable should the two sides’ agreement continue to be violated.

Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the regime’s top joint military command, condemned the American strikes as a “blatant act of aggression” and vowed a “crushing response,” while asserting that Tehran will not permit outside interference in the Strait of Hormuz. The command maintained that the only secure route for commercial vessels and oil tankers through the waterway is the one Iran itself designates.

Iranian Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, writing on X, listed a series of what he termed violations of the Islamabad memorandum of understanding by Washington: alleged interference with Iranian arrangements in the Strait, renewed threats of further strikes, the reimposition of oil sanctions, continued strikes on southern Iran, and ongoing actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon. He declared that “the era of bullying and extortion is over” and that Iran “won’t fold.”

Air raid sirens sounded across both Bahrain and Kuwait as the Iranian strikes unfolded, with Bahraini authorities urging residents to seek shelter immediately.

The exchange represents one of the most serious ruptures yet in the fragile framework that had briefly quieted the region, and comes as diplomatic efforts elsewhere continue — including a reported White House invitation to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to visit Washington later this month to advance the separate US-brokered framework between Israel and Lebanon.