Iran fires ballistic missiles and drones at US bases in Bahrain and Kuwait, threatening to halt ceasefire talks

Summary

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched ballistic missiles and drones at the US Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait and US Fifth Fleet facilities at Bahrain's Port Salman between 02:00 and 03:00 AM on June 28, claiming the strikes were retaliation for earlier US attacks on five Iranian coastal sites. Bahrain's Foreign Ministry called it a "dangerous escalation"; Kuwait condemned "repeated, heinous" attacks violating its sovereignty. The IRGC threatened that any further US strikes would cause a "complete halt" to the diplomatic process established under the June 17 ceasefire MOU. Trump responded by warning Iran "will no longer exist" if strikes continue. A US official said talks would proceed despite the exchange, underscoring a contradictory public posture of escalation threats and diplomatic continuity.

Why it matters

The strikes expose the Hormuz reopening as the live tripwire inside the ceasefire framework: the US and Iran disagree on who controls the strait's reopening sequence, and that disagreement is now generating kinetic exchanges that each side frames as self-defense. A single exchange spiraling past mutual deterrence could collapse the MOU track entirely before the Doha technical talks can stabilize it, reversing the June 26 Lebanon deal momentum alongside it.

What to watch

• Whether the Doha technical talks proceed on June 30 after Iran's threats to halt all processes.
• Further strikes by either side on Gulf bases or Iranian coastal sites in the 24-48 hours following the exchange.
• Kuwait and Bahrain's formal responses to Iran: whether they escalate diplomatically or absorb the strikes to protect the ceasefire.