Iran hits US bases in Kuwait and the UAE as four host states answer only with interception statements

Iran’s army said it launched missiles and suicide drones at US military bases in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait early on Thursday 3 September. According to Middle East Eye’s live blog, timestamped 12:12 BST, the army said the strikes hit satellite communications systems, equipment warehouses and hangars housing American fighter jets at Kuwait’s Ahmed Al Jaber Air Base, and targeted US positions and radar systems at Al Minhad Air Base in the UAE. Iran’s state broadcaster Press TV branded the operation “Saeqeh Operation wave 31” — an Iranian designation and an Iranian count, which is nonetheless the only public quantification of the campaign’s tempo. Kuwaiti authorities said the country had been targeted with unspecified weapons, CBS reported, and The National in Abu Dhabi reported the Kuwaiti army calling the attacks “heinous” and saying it repelled them. The event is confirmed by the receiving state; the damage claims are Tehran’s alone.

This was the third wave in four days. On 1–2 September, Jordan’s armed forces reported intercepting 10 ballistic missiles and Bahrain said its air defences intercepted and destroyed Iranian drones, per Asharq Al-Awsat; Al Jazeera reported Iranian claims of attacks on Bahrain, Jordan and Iraq. Iranian casualty figures from the corresponding US strikes do not reconcile: Al Jazeera, citing Iranian media, reported at least five killed including a child and 63 wounded, with IRNA citing Khuzestan deputy governor Valiollah Hayati on a further seven dead, while Gulf News put the 1 September toll at 11. The trigger, per NPR, was a US strike over the weekend on Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz — CBS names Larak — which Washington said Iran intended to use to shoot mines into the waterway. That intent remains a US assertion with no independent corroboration located, and it ended what NPR describes as a monthlong lull.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been unusually explicit about what would stop this. Via Anadolu, Iran is not seeking a ceasefire but a complete end to the war across the region, with guarantees against future attacks and compensation for damages; Middle East Monitor reported on 19 August that Araghchi told mediators Tehran would not accept a temporary ceasefire. The House of Commons Library’s 28 July briefing records that the current attacks followed the collapse of Oman-mediated talks in February 2026, and that an April round of direct talks was held in Islamabad with a US delegation led by Vice President Vance, per then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Al Jazeera reported on 1 April that Araghchi confirmed direct contact with Steve Witkoff while denying it amounted to negotiations.

Assessment: The pattern worth tracking is not Iranian tempo but Gulf tolerance. Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Jordan are all being struck for hosting American forces, and all four have so far responded with interception statements rather than policy — no basing review, no public conditions on US operations, no visible break in the arrangement. That is a choice, and it is renewed every time a wave lands. Two things would signal it changing: a host state disclosing damage or casualties on its own soil rather than leaving the claim to Press TV, or one of them attaching a condition to American use of its airfields. Neither has happened. Note also that the strike that ended the lull rests on a US claim about Iranian intent that nobody outside CENTCOM has substantiated.