DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Kuwait briefly shut the country's main airport Wednesday after Iranian drones heavily damaged it and killed one person — the latest salvo in a series of back-and-forth attacks by Tehran and Washington that have tested a fragile ceasefire.
The strikes came as semiofficial Iranian news agencies said the country had stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire in the war with the U.S. and Israel.
A regional official said Tehran wanted the truce in Lebanon enforced before returning to talks. U.S. President Donald Trump said negotiations were continuing.
Those talks have dragged on for weeks, and repeated exchanges of strikes in the Gulf region and Israel’s broadening war in Lebanon are further straining the efforts.
All the while, Iran has maintained its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial artery for the world’s oil and natural gas — and the U.S. has continued its blockade of Iranian ports, ensuring that global fuel prices remain high and the effects of the conflict are felt well beyond the region.
Defense Ministry spokesperson Brig. Gen. Saud Abdulaziz Al-Otaibi said that “a number of hostile drones” had targeted Kuwait International Airport’s passenger building, severely damaging the building and injuring “a number of individuals.”
Later, Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry said at least one person had been killed.
State media reported that Kuwait Airways suspended operations. Civil aviation authorities said that the airport partially reopened later in the day, with Kuwait Airways flights resuming from a different terminal from the one that was hit. No other flights would be operating, they said.
The airport only reopened Monday after closing early in the war.
The U.S. military said Iran fired two missiles at Kuwait that fell apart en route, and that it had “downed multiple drones” targeting American forces in the country.
The military also said U.S. and Bahraini forces intercepted missiles aimed at the Gulf kingdom, which is home to the U.S Navy's 5th fleet. Bahrain’s Defense Ministry said its military intercepted and destroyed three missiles and a number of drones fired by Iran.
The U.S. military said it launched strikes on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz in response to the attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard acknowledged that it targeted the headquarters of the 5th Fleet and U.S. military facilities in another country, but did not name Kuwait. It said the strikes were in retaliation for attacks on Qeshm Island.
Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned the U.S. strikes on Qeshm Island, where it said a telecommunications tower was struck, and other previous strikes. It called them “acts of aggression” that it said violated the ceasefire.
A senior Emirati diplomat called on Wednesday for “a firm, unified, and cohesive Gulf position” against Iran following the attacks.
“This aggression does not target a specific state, but rather all of us,” Anwar Gargash wrote on the X platform.
Iran’s Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to the Guard, reported that Iran’s negotiators have stopped communicating with ceasefire mediators as tensions flared in Israel’s separate but related fight against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.
A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, told The Associated Press that Iran had not communicated at all on Tuesday after saying that a ceasefire needed to be enforced in Lebanon for negotiations to continue.
Trump called reports of a cessation in talks “false and erroneous.”
“The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago and today,” Trump said in a social media post. “Where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ’It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal.”
Israeli forces have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter of a century — despite a nominal ceasefire in place between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanon has emerged as a key sticking point in Trump’s efforts to sign a ceasefire deal with Iran.
Tehran insists that any larger potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to keep the issues separate and is under heavy domestic pressure to strike Hezbollah as he prepares for new elections this fall.
The fighting has exposed a rift between close allies Israel and the U.S., with the U.S. pushing for restraint and Israel seeking to step up the military pressure on Hezbollah.
A person familiar with the situation said Netanyahu and Trump had a “tense” conversation earlier this week. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media. The person didn’t elaborate on the details of the call.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece, Sam Mednick in Jerusalem, and Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.
