US bases targeted by airstrikes hours after Trump threatens to wipe Iran off the map

Iran has unleashed a series of drone and missile attacks on Gulf states hours after Donald Trump threatened to wipe the country “off the map”. The Islamic Republic’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard targeted Bahrain and Kuwait on Sunday (June 28) in response to US strikes on Iran.

Tehran threatened negotiations to end the war would come to a “complete halt” if Washington continued its attacks. Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said Iran’s strikes damaged a block of flats near the international airport and no one was killed. The ministry released photos of an eight-storey building, with the top floor completely destroyed, filled with rubble and its windows blown out.

Bahrain is home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet. The base there came under repeated attack during the war. The damaged building was not near the fleet’s headquarters in Manama.

The country’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement denouncing what it called “a dangerous escalation” which it said reveals what Tehran is doing is “not a passing act, nor an isolated incident”.

It said the attack was a deliberate approach and a systematic pattern of repeated aggression against the sovereignty of the kingdom and the security of its citizens.

Kuwait, which is home to a major US army base, said it detected and intercepted two ballistic missiles. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

The Guard claimed responsibility for both attacks, saying it had targeted Al Asad Air Base in Kuwait.

It added: “Let the enemy know that violating the ceasefire… will lead to a complete halt of ongoing processes.”

In control of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, the Guard answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. It is thought to be wielding even greater influence now in the Islamic Republic.

The US and Iran had already traded attacks over the weekend. The US military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defence sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities on Sunday.

This followed an attack on a ship at sea on Saturday morning. The ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.

In a social media post, Mr Trump said the US had “struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN!”.

He warned of a point where the US may no longer be able to be reasonable “and will be forced to militarily complete the job”.

Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social: “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”.

The incident came after an Iranian drone struck a merchant vessel off the coast of Oman on Thursday and the US military retaliated with strikes

The US military said “Iran had a chance to honour the ceasefire agreement” but “elected not to” when its forces attacked the Kiku.

Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without Iran’s direct oversight sparked the latest crossfire gripping the region.

A multinational maritime body overseen by the US Navy said on Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic, triggering a new flashpoint with Tehran.

Iran insists that after the war it alone must govern the Strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas.

The global community has long considered the Strait an international passageway, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman’s territorial waters.