Iran Intercepted US Drone Near Bushehr After US Strikes, IRGC Says

Iran said it intercepted an American drone in the Bushehr area, with Iranian Tasnim News Agency reporting on Thursday that the drone was intercepted by firing a defensive missile at the drone.

The US military struck an Iranian military site assessed as posing a threat to US forces and commercial maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and shot down multiple Iranian drones during the same operation, a US official told Reuters.

Al Jazeera

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it targeted an American air base in the region after fresh US strikes on southern Iran overnight, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

Kuwait, which hosts a US base, said it had intercepted "hostile missile and drone threats", but did not confirm the target, while US Central Command (Centcom) said Iran’s attack on Kuwait was an "egregious ceasefire violation" that occurred "hours after Iranian forces launched five one-way attack drones".

US Central Command said it intercepted and shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones and struck an Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was preparing to launch a fifth drone, a US official told The Hill on Wednesday.

The Hill reported that the US official described the actions as "measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire," while President Donald Trump said Iran was "negotiating on fumes" during a Cabinet meeting.

Al Jazeera

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai condemned the US strikes and said they constituted a violation of the ceasefire, adding that the Islamic republic would "take all necessary measures to defend its national sovereignty," according to quotes cited by IRIB.

Kuwait’s foreign affairs ministry strongly condemned what it termed "criminal Iranian attacks that targeted" its territory, while the US Treasury Department said any ships that pay the "Persian Gulf Strait Authority" could be "exposed to the risk of sanctions".

Iran said it used a new air defence system to shoot down a United States MQ-9 Reaper drone near the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week, with Iranian media saying the drone was brought down near Qeshm Island and that the interception marked the first combat use of a locally developed system called Arash-e Kamangir.

Al Jazeera reported there has been no independent corroboration of Iran’s claim of a new interception system, and it said the US’s loss of a drone close to one of the world’s most sensitive shipping routes comes as it has reportedly carried out new attacks on an Iranian military site near Bandar Abbas.

Mark Hilborne, a senior lecturer in the school of security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that while there was "very little independently verified information" about Arash-e Kamangir, the attack would "fit a wider pattern".

The stakes in the reporting were tied to the Strait of Hormuz and the ceasefire framework, with the BBC saying the renewed hostilities threaten a fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, and with Al Jazeera describing Tehran’s claim as renewing questions about how much of Iran’s air defence capability survived months of Israeli and US attacks.