Iranian officials on Thursday denied bombing the Kuwait airport and insisted ceasefire talks with the United States are proceeding.
Iran claimed the damage to the Kuwait International Airport was caused by an American Patriot missile that was launched in error.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman Brig. Gen. Hossein Mohbi issued the denial of attacking Kuwait’s airport on Thursday, claiming Iranian “investigations” had determined no Iranian missiles were launched at the target.
Brigadier General Hossein Mohbi, spokesperson for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)
Instead, Mohbi said a U.S. Patriot Missile – presumably launched to intercept one of the missiles that Iran did not fire – malfunctioned and fell on the airport terminal. Iran’s “investigators” concluded the incident was “the result of a U.S. missile defense system error.”
Mohbi’s investigators apparently missed the surveillance video released on Thursday that showed an Iranian drone hitting the Kuwait International Airport:
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) dismissed Mohbi’s claims as “totally false.”
“Iran struck the civilian airport with drones in a deliberate, calculated, and unjustified attack,” CENTCOM said.
Kuwait expelled two Iranian diplomats on Wednesday in response to the airport attack, which killed one person and injured at least 63 more.
Israel’s Ynet News argued that whatever face-saving hasty denials Tehran might feel obliged to make, Iran’s attack on the Kuwaiti airport served an important purpose.
“Tehran was not simply punishing Kuwait for hosting American soldiers. It was demonstrating with operational clarity that any US strike on Iranian soil will produce an immediate response against the nearest available civilian infrastructure. The airport is the message,” Ynet said.
“Every passenger terminal in the Gulf is now a potential instrument of Iranian strategic leverage in a conflict Tehran is determined to internationalize far beyond its own borders,” it added.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen TV on Thursday that “indirect messages” are still being exchanged between Iran and the United States, although “no formal negotiations are currently taking place.”
Araghchi said Iran’s most urgent priority was staving off a potential Israeli attack on suburbs of Beirut that serve as strongholds for Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah. He claimed that “Iranian military readiness,” along with diplomacy and international pressure, has prevented Israel from moving against Beirut, and he repeated Iran’s demand that Lebanon must be part of any ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran.
According to the foreign minister, Iran has warned the U.S. that an Israeli attack on Beirut would “effectively end the ceasefire and could trigger a response from the Iranian Armed Forces.”
Iran’s still-unseen Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei – who was reportedly injured in the strike that killed his predecessor and father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 and has been ostensibly communicating through statements given to third parties – released another message on Thursday to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the death of Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
In the new message, Khamenei claimed Iran has defeated Israel and the United States and has become “a source of pride for freedom-seeking nations around the world.”
The putative supreme leader said that Israel has been reduced to “spreading doubt, fear, despair, mistrust, and division” in Iran, so Iranians should resist by supporting his theocratic dictatorship more fervently than ever.
This was not merely an encouragement to nationalism, as Khamenei warned anyone who “causes pessimism and disillusionment” will be treated as a traitor and punished for “aiding the enemy.”
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