Iran Launches Drones at Hormuz, US Strikes Back on Coast

The fragile ceasefire that the United States and Iran have held since April 8 this year was pushed back to breaking point on the morning of June 6, when Tehran launched four one-way attack drones toward the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil trade passes. For Serbia, which sources fuel and petroleum products on a market acutely sensitive to any tremor in the Gulf, an escalation like this is hardly distant news: every threat to close the strait spills straight into European energy prices, and onto the pumps in Belgrade.

US forces deployed in the region shot down all four drones before they reached the shipping lanes. As an immediate response, the Pentagon ordered strikes on Iranian coastal radar surveillance sites that, according to US officials, are used to guide attacks on maritime traffic. The radars hit were at Goruk and on Qeshm Island, at the very mouth of the strait.

What exactly happened in the Gulf

The exchange of fire did not stop at the coastal radars. Iran then fired seven ballistic missiles at targets in Kuwait and Bahrain, striking at the Ali al-Salem US air base and the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet in Manama. US Central Command said most of the projectiles were intercepted:

Initial assessments indicate that six missiles fired by Iran were intercepted, while the seventh failed to reach its target, CENTCOM said.

CENTCOM also dismissed Iranian claims of damage to US facilities:

Iranian claims of damage to the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain are false, the command said.

According to US figures, no American service member was wounded in the attack. Kuwaiti authorities, however, had earlier confirmed that one person was killed and more than 60 injured in strikes on the airport, a sign that the fallout from these exchanges long ago moved beyond a purely military confrontation.

The sequence of events on June 6 unfolded as follows:

• Iran launched four attack drones at the Strait of Hormuz, which US forces shot down.
• The US struck Iranian coastal radars at Goruk and on Qeshm Island to protect maritime traffic.
• Iran fired seven ballistic missiles at Kuwait and Bahrain, at the Ali al-Salem base and the Fifth Fleet headquarters.
• CENTCOM intercepted six of the seven missiles; the seventh missed its target.

Is the US-Iran ceasefire still holding

Formally, the ceasefire reached on April 8, 2026, remains in force, but repeated attacks like these threaten to dismantle it entirely. The diplomatic channel between Washington and Tehran has not been officially severed, yet every new exchange of fire narrows the space to keep it open. What makes this episode particularly dangerous is the choice of target: the Strait of Hormuz is not solely an Iranian or American concern, but a point through which a significant share of global oil exports passes, so every drone above it carries a cost far beyond the Gulf.

From a European vantage point, Serbia included, the key question is not who hit whom, but how long the market can absorb shocks like these before they show up on energy bills. The Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama and the Ali al-Salem base in Kuwait demonstrate that the geography of this conflict is wider than it appears, reaching states that are not themselves party to it.

How long, in your view, can the US-Iran ceasefire survive exchanges like this one before the conflict flares back into the open?