Iran strikes Kuwait’s main airport and kills 1 as ceasefire is tested again

Kuwait briefly shut its main air­port Wednes­day af­ter Iran­ian drones heav­i­ly dam­aged a pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nal build­ing, killed one per­son and wound­ed dozens — the lat­est in back-and-forth at­tacks by Tehran and Wash­ing­ton that have test­ed a frag­ile cease­fire.

Se­mi-of­fi­cial Iran­ian news agen­cies have said Tehran had stopped com­mu­ni­cat­ing with me­di­a­tors about ex­tend­ing the cease­fire in the war with the U.S. and Is­rael. A re­gion­al of­fi­cial said Iran want­ed a sep­a­rate cease­fire in Lebanon en­forced be­fore re­turn­ing to talks. U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump as­sert­ed that ne­go­ti­a­tions con­tin­ued.

The talks have dragged on for weeks, and ex­changes of strikes in the Gulf re­gion and Is­rael’s broad­en­ing war with the Iran­ian-backed Hezbol­lah in Lebanon are fur­ther strains.

Iran main­tains its hold on the Strait of Hor­muz — a cru­cial wa­ter­way for the world’s oil and nat­ur­al gas and re­lat­ed prod­ucts like fer­til­iz­er — and the U.S. con­tin­ues its block­ade of Iran­ian ports. Glob­al fu­el prices re­main high, and the ef­fects of the con­flict are felt well be­yond the re­gion.

An In­di­an na­tion­al is killed at Kuwait’s main air­port

De­fense Min­istry spokesper­son Brig. Gen. Saud Ab­du­laz­iz Al-Otaibi said “a num­ber of hos­tile drones” tar­get­ed a pas­sen­ger build­ing at Kuwait In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, which had opened on­ly Mon­day af­ter a months-long clo­sure be­cause of the war, which be­gan Feb. 28 with U.S. and Is­raeli strikes on Iran.

Au­thor­i­ties said one per­son was killed and 63 were wound­ed, in­clud­ing pas­sen­gers and work­ers. Health Min­istry spokesman Ab­dul­lah Al Sanad said some suf­fered se­ri­ous in­juries. In­dia’s em­bassy said the per­son killed was an In­di­an na­tion­al.

Kuwait’s De­fense Min­istry said it de­stroyed over a dozen mis­siles and a sim­i­lar num­ber of drones from Iran. The For­eign Min­istry said Kuwait re­serves the right to re­spond to Iran and will “nei­ther ac­cept nor tol­er­ate” the at­tacks.

The air­port par­tial­ly re­opened lat­er, with Kuwait Air­ways flights re­sum­ing at a dif­fer­ent ter­mi­nal, ac­cord­ing to civ­il avi­a­tion au­thor­i­ties. No oth­er flights were op­er­at­ing.

Mean­while, the U.S. mil­i­tary said two Iran­ian mis­siles fell apart en route to Kuwait and that it “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, 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.

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.

Both the U.S. and Iran said they were re­tal­i­at­ing for ear­li­er at­tacks or at­tempt­ed at­tacks.

The U.S. mil­i­tary al­so said it launched strikes on an Iran­ian mil­i­tary ground con­trol sta­tion on Qeshm Is­land in the Strait of Hor­muz.

Iran’s For­eign Min­istry con­demned the U.S. strikes on the 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 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 X.

Trump calls re­ports of ces­sa­tion in talks ‘false’

Iran’s Fars and Tas­nim news agen­cies, both be­lieved to be close to the Guard, on Tues­day re­port­ed that Iran’s ne­go­tia­tors have stopped com­mu­ni­cat­ing with cease­fire me­di­a­tors as ten­sions flare in Is­rael’s sep­a­rate but re­lat­ed fight against Hezbol­lah 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 on Tues­day af­ter say­ing 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 Tues­day.

The war is in­creas­ing­ly tied to Is­rael’s war in Lebanon

Is­raeli forces have moved deep­er in­to Lebanon than at any time in over a quar­ter-cen­tu­ry, while Hezbol­lah has launched rock­et and drone at­tacks. The de­clared cease­fire in Lebanon is of­fi­cial­ly in place and no side has for­mal­ly with­drawn or de­clared it over even as at­tacks con­tin­ue.

Lebanon has emerged as a stick­ing point in Trump’s ef­forts to sign a cease­fire deal with Iran. Tehran in­sists that any larg­er po­ten­tial truce must quell the fight­ing in Lebanon. Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu wants to keep the is­sues sep­a­rate and is un­der do­mes­tic pres­sure to strike Hezbol­lah as he pre­pares for elec­tions this fall.

The fight­ing has ex­posed a rift be­tween close al­lies Is­rael and the U.S., with the U.S. push­ing for re­straint.

In a pod­cast in­ter­view re­leased Wednes­day, Trump con­firmed a re­port that he had called Ne­tanyahu “crazy” Mon­day in a phone call pep­pered with an ex­ple­tive. Trump told The New York Post’s “Pod Force One” that he was “a lit­tle bit per­turbed” that Is­rael’s fight with Hezbol­lah was hold­ing back talks with Iran.

Still, Trump said his re­la­tion­ship with Ne­tanyahu was sol­id, and “we’ve worked very well to­geth­er.” —DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP)

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Sto­ry by JON GAM­BRELL and SAMY MAGDY | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Samy Magdy re­port­ed from Cairo. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Ele­na Be­ca­toros in Athens, Greece, Sheikh Saaliq in New Del­hi, Sam Med­nick in Jerusalem, and Aamer Mad­hani and Kon­stan­tin Toropin in Wash­ing­ton con­tributed to this re­port.