By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Iranian missiles and drones struck Kuwait’s international airport on Wednesday, killing at least one person and injuring dozens, as the United States carried out fresh strikes near the Strait of Hormuz and President Trump claimed, in a morning podcast interview, that Iran had already agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program — an assertion Tehran’s government flatly contradicted.
The simultaneous eruption of violence and diplomatic confusion came on a day Secretary of State Marco Rubio was before the House Foreign Affairs Committee declaring that “Operation Epic Fury,” Washington’s military campaign against Iran, was finished. It was the administration’s clearest public statement yet that the offensive phase of the conflict had ended — though the Strait of Hormuz remained closed, American forces stayed deployed across the region, and Iranian missiles continued to fly.
“We’re no longer conducting sustained strikes inside of Iran to degrade their military, because Epic Fury is over,” Rubio told lawmakers. “That operation has concluded.”
What was also unfolding, in nearly real time, told a more complicated story.
Kuwait attacked; Bahrain targeted; US strikes Qeshm Island
An Iranian drone and missile struck the T1 terminal building at Kuwait International Airport overnight, causing what Kuwaiti authorities described as severe structural damage. Flights were suspended and diverted until further notice. Kuwait’s Ministry of Defense condemned what it called “criminal Iranian aggression” and said air defense systems had intercepted additional incoming projectiles. The Foreign Ministry called it an assault of the “strongest terms” and asserted Kuwait’s right to respond.
U.S. Central Command reported that two Iranian missiles fired at Kuwait fell short or broke apart in flight. Three ballistic missiles aimed at Bahrain were intercepted. Bahrain’s defense forces said they had destroyed three missiles and multiple drones. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed it had struck U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and additional regional targets — Central Command said all such attacks on American forces failed.
Earlier, U.S. forces carried out strikes on Qeshm Island near the Strait of Hormuz following what Central Command described as attempted Iranian attacks. A U.S. aircraft also fired a Hellfire missile into the engine room of an oil tanker attempting to reach an Iranian port, disabling it as part of the ongoing U.S. blockade. The IRGC said its strikes on Kuwait and Bahrain were retaliation for an American attack on a communications tower south of Qeshm.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a warning that Kuwait and Bahrain bore “direct and clear responsibility” for the attacks, alleging their territory had been used to support U.S. operations. Tehran said it reserved the right to self-defense “using all available means.” Mohsen Rezaee, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed that “the response to every shot and aggression will be a barrage of missiles and drones.”
Trump’s nuclear claim; Tehran’s denial
The most consequential claim of the day came not from Capitol Hill but from a White House podcast interview recorded Tuesday night and released Wednesday morning. Asked about the status of nuclear negotiations with Iran, Trump asserted that Tehran had already agreed to relinquish its nuclear weapons program.
“They’ve already agreed they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said on Pod Force One. “That was the big thing.” Pressed on whether the agreement was firm, he added: “Yeah, they’ve agreed to that. I mean, they can change their mind, but that was one of the things they had to agree.”
Iranian officials offered a starkly different account. Esmaeil Baghaei, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, said Monday that “no negotiations have taken place at this stage on the details of the nuclear issue.” Iran has long maintained that its atomic program is for peaceful purposes and has denied developing a nuclear bomb. Khamenei, who has not appeared publicly since succeeding his father and is reported to have been injured in the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes, previously vowed to protect Iran’s enrichment capabilities.
Trump said Khamenei was “involved, absolutely” in the peace negotiations, and added that he hoped to meet the Supreme Leader one day. “I think they have a lot of respect for him,” Trump said, echoing remarks Rubio had made during Senate testimony Tuesday. “I’d like to meet him, depending on how it all works out.”
Rubio, for his part, told the Senate committee Tuesday that the United States would grant sanctions relief only if Iran agreed to fully abandon its nuclear activities.
Iran is seeking access to billions of dollars in frozen oil revenues, sanctions waivers on crude exports, the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade, and continued leverage over the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas moved before the conflict began more than three months ago. Whether any of those terms have been agreed upon remains, by both sides’ accounts, unresolved.
Trump insisted Wednesday that negotiations were “ongoing continuously” despite Iranian state media reporting that Tehran had not communicated with Washington for several days. “The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, and today,” he posted on social media.
On Capitol Hill: sharp exchanges, disputed intelligence
Against the backdrop of overnight violence, Rubio’s testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee produced some of the bitterest exchanges of the conflict’s political season.
The sharpest came from Rep. Sara Jacobs, a San Diego Democrat whose district includes roughly 2,500 Marines currently deployed to the Middle East. Jacobs told Rubio she was prepared to accept his framing, for the sake of argument, but had a fundamental question: “Who won?”
Rubio argued that Washington had defined its own terms of victory — destroying Iran’s defense industrial base, its conventional navy, what remained of its air force, and significantly reducing its missile launchers and drone stockpile. “Those are all gone,” he said. “So I consider that victory, and we did too. And that was the purpose of Epic Fury.”
Jacobs pushed back with intelligence assessments she said indicated Iran had been reconstituting its military industrial base faster than predicted, still holding roughly 70 percent of its missile stockpile and 70 percent of its mobile launchers. “The Strait of Hormuz was open before the war,” she said. “It is now closed.”
Rubio disputed the basis of the intelligence. “I don’t know what intelligence assessments you’re referring to,” he said. “We wouldn’t discuss intelligence assessments if they were real.”
The exchange grew more personal. Jacobs, accusing the administration of failing to acknowledge that it was “losing this reckless war of choice,” added a cutting aside: “Just like you couldn’t admit that the shoes the president bought you were too big, you clearly don’t know what winning means.”
Rubio appeared genuinely thrown. “I don’t know what shoes she’s talking about,” he said, visibly irritated. “They’re some Florsheims. They’re actually pretty good. They fit fine.”
Rubio also sought to distinguish the operation’s military scope from any aspiration for regime change in Tehran. After Republican Rep. Michael McCaul expressed hope for a “free Iran,” Rubio said the administration shared the sentiment but stressed: “That was not the goal of our mission.” The objectives were to strip Iran of the capacity to threaten the region with missiles, drones, and a potential nuclear breakout — not to topple its government.
Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the committee’s ranking Democrat, was blunter. He accused the Trump administration of having “traded dialogue for bombs yet again,” leaving the United States isolated. He said Trump had promised “no new wars,” only to send troops back to the Middle East. Americans, Meeks argued, were “not safer while fighting an unnecessary war” and “not more prosperous” while struggling to afford groceries, gas, and healthcare.
Netanyahu called out; Lebanon front widens
Trump also confirmed Wednesday what the outlet Axios had reported Monday — that he had erupted at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call, calling him “f***ing crazy” and demanding he stop striking Lebanon.
“At some point, I said Bibi, we’re gonna stop this,” Trump acknowledged in the podcast interview. He insisted the relationship remained warm: “I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him.” He described himself as “a wartime president” and Netanyahu as “a wartime prime minister.”
The outburst came after Netanyahu ordered fresh strikes on Beirut, which caused Iran to declare the ceasefire violated “on all fronts” and announce a suspension of indirect negotiations with Washington. Trump said he subsequently communicated with Hezbollah through intermediaries — an extraordinary first for any American president — and secured an agreement to halt hostilities. He posted on Truth Social that no U.S. troops would go to Beirut and that forces already en route had been turned back.
Israel kept up strikes on southern Lebanese towns Tuesday, Lebanese security sources said, despite a U.S.-mediated partial ceasefire announced Monday. A Lebanese drone over Beirut kept residents unsettled. More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced since the latest round of fighting began.
The United Arab Emirates called Wednesday for a unified Gulf response to the escalating Iranian attacks, with presidential adviser Anwar Gargash warning that “no Gulf state should be left to face targeting alone.” The Gulf Cooperation Council condemned the attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain as evidence of “the Iranian regime’s determination to pursue rejected hostile policies.”
The conflict has killed thousands since it began February 28, the vast majority in Iran and Lebanon, while pushing global energy prices sharply higher and disrupting maritime trade routes that underpin the world economy. No formal peace agreement has been signed. The Strait of Hormuz, closed for months, showed no sign of reopening.
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