Iran Strikes US Bases in Kuwait After Qeshm Island Hit
CENTCOM says it intercepted Iranian missiles aimed at Kuwait and Bahrain after striking Qeshm Island, throwing the fragile truce with Washington into doubt.
- CENTCOM carried out "self-defence strikes" on Iranian radar and drone command systems on Qeshm Island and near Goruk on May 30 and 31.
- The Revolutionary Guard attempted a missile strike on a US base in Kuwait early on June 1 in retaliation for a hit on a tower at Sirik.
- CENTCOM says it intercepted two ballistic missiles bound for Kuwait and three bound for Bahrain, while reports describe dozens killed and wounded across the Gulf.
- Iran suspended its talks with the US on June 1, and a truce that had only just been patched together is once again in question.
The fresh escalation in the Strait of Hormuz returns Serbia to the very point it reached a few weeks ago, when we wrote about Iran’s threat to close this corridor: the price of fuel hinges on an island three thousand kilometres away, and every new strike is felt at the pumps in Belgrade. US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it carried out strikes on May 30 and 31 against Iranian radar and drone command systems on Qeshm Island and near Goruk, describing them as “self-defence” and citing a threat to Gulf shipping.
The answer was not long in coming. Early on June 1, the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) attempted a missile strike on the Ali Al-Salem base in Kuwait, in retaliation for a hit on a tower at Sirik in Iran’s Hormozgan province. With that, a series of mutual strikes that was meant to be frozen by the newly agreed truce once again turned into an open military exchange between Tehran and Washington.
What really happened on Qeshm and across the Gulf?
For Iran’s military, Qeshm is far more than a tourist island at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. It is an underground “missile city” of the Revolutionary Guard, a network of tunnels and launch positions sitting just a few dozen kilometres from the narrowest stretch of the corridor through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes. A strike on such a site is not something Tehran can let slide, which explains the speed of the retaliation that followed.
According to a report by Solace Global, the toll across the Gulf is heavy. As of June 1, the figures point to at least:
- seven killed in Kuwait,
- three killed and 29 wounded in Saudi Arabia,
- three killed in Bahrain.
CENTCOM, for its part, claimed that most of the projectiles had been intercepted or had missed their targets. In a statement carried by the Anadolu Agency, it said:
Two Iranian missiles fired at Kuwait fell short or broke up in flight, and three missiles launched toward Bahrain were immediately intercepted.
A truce on paper, a war on the ground
The biggest consequence of these strikes is diplomatic rather than military. On June 1, Iran suspended its talks with the United States, citing the clash between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, while President Donald Trump insists the talks are in fact continuing. Those two opposing signals, one from Tehran and one from Washington, show better than anything how brittle the truce is and how little trust stands behind it.
For a European perspective, and for Serbia in particular, the problem is twofold. On one side is energy exposure: every jump in the price of a barrel driven by fears that Hormuz could close feeds into import costs and into inflation. On the other side is the diplomatic question, the same one we raised in our piece on the Rubio talks, whether the US administration can bomb Iranian positions and, at the same table, persuade Tehran to give up its missile programme.
The geopolitical reality is that every calculation in the Strait of Hormuz is measured in days, not weeks. If the exchange of strikes goes on, a truce that was barely concluded will become a dead letter, and the transatlantic relationship will again be tested over who carries the burden of a new Gulf crisis. How long can Belgrade keep treating this escalation as distant news, rather than as a bill that arrives with every next tank of fuel?
