Iran justifies strikes at Kuwait International Airport as 'self-defense'
Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry announced it was expelling two Iranian diplomats and reducing the size of Iran’s mission in the country after the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on Wednesday launched a wave of drones and missiles that hit a terminal at Kuwait International Airport, killing one and injuring 63 others.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi justified the strikes, saying in a post on X Wednesday that Iran’s strikes have been in self-defense against “sites the US is permitted to use to attack civilian shipping and violate the ceasefire.” Araghchi shared a video clip from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s hearing on Tuesday, in which he praises the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait for being cooperative with Washington.
Our Armed Forces are conducting self-defense strikes on sites the U.S. is permitted to use to attack civilian shipping and violate the ceasefire.
Any hostile act will be met with an immediate, decisive response. What sanctions and war failed to achieve won't be won with more war pic.twitter.com/CwjULJ6PeI— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) June 3, 2026
Iran also fired missiles at Bahrain in the early hours of Wednesday.
Kuwait’s state news agency reported “severe damage” to the airport’s Terminal 1 building. Later on Wednesday, the airport said Kuwait Airways flights had resumed from Terminal 4, and the country’s General Civil Aviation Authority said damage assessments had been completed to ensure operational safety.
🚨 LATEST: Kuwait airport damaged, flights suspended after Iran missile attack https://t.co/DvssIYAJm1 pic.twitter.com/c4EtbvvFPM
— AL-MONITOR (@AlMonitor) June 3, 2026
A day earlier, Iran claimed US forces fired airborne projectiles at an IRGC communications tower in the southern part of Qeshm Island in what the US described as “self-defense strikes” in retaliation for “attempted attacks by Iran across the Middle East.”
Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi condemned the attacks as “a dangerous and unprecedented escalation.”
On Wednesday, Trump said in an interview with the New York Post that he and Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei are “getting along quite well.” He added, “I’d like to meet him. We probably will meet at some point, depending on how it all works out.”
Meanwhile, Israel and Hezbollah continued to exchange fire on Wednesday despite a partial ceasefire announced by Trump earlier this week.
Lebanese and Israeli representatives began the second day of their fourth round of political talks in Washington on Wednesday.