IRGC warns countries hosting US forces to prepare for Corresponding Response

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have issued a stark warning to countries hosting US military bases, calling on them to prepare for what the IRGC termed proportionate retaliatory action.

The warning accompanied claims of strikes on multiple American military sites across Kuwait and Bahrain — claims that have not been independently verified by US or Gulf state officials.

The IRGC said it targeted a US Navy fuel facility at Kuwait’s Al-Ahmadi port and an area housing American fighter jets at Bahrain’s Sheikh Isa Air Base. According to state-linked reports, Guards ground forces also struck Camp Arifjan, a US military logistics center in Kuwait, using drones and missiles, claiming American personnel casualties resulted from the attack. A separate claimed strike on Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base reportedly disabled radar systems and destroyed a weapons repair hangar and drone facility there.

None of these specific claims — the base strikes, personnel casualties, or equipment damage — have been confirmed by CENTCOM, Kuwaiti or Bahraini authorities, or independent sources, consistent with the pattern of competing, unverifiable claims that has defined much of this conflict’s reporting.

The warning to host nations marks a notable escalation in Iran’s public messaging, extending explicit threats beyond direct combatants to third-party Gulf states whose territory hosts American forces. The IRGC said these countries’ land is being used for aggression against Iran, and semi-official news agency Tasnim reported the Guards demanding these nations immediately activate civil defense units, urging protection and relocation of civilians away from potential target sites — language suggesting Iran wants these warnings treated as imminent rather than rhetorical.

This shift carries serious implications for regional stability. Kuwait and Bahrain host significant US military infrastructure specifically because of their proximity to Iran and the Gulf, a positioning that has historically been treated as a deterrent rather than a vulnerability. Direct Iranian threats against these host nations — rather than solely against US forces themselves — would represent a considerably broader escalation, drawing sovereign Gulf states more directly into a conflict they haven’t been formal parties to.

The claims arrive amid Iran’s broader campaign of announced retaliatory actions in recent days, including claimed strikes on a US command center in Syria, a naval vessel in the Arabian Sea, and tanker interdictions in the Strait of Hormuz — a pattern of near-daily claimed operations across multiple fronts that Iranian officials have framed as demonstrating expanding retaliatory capacity.

Whether these specific claims are accurate, and whether Kuwait and Bahrain face any actual follow-through on the warning to prepare for retaliation, will depend on developments in the coming days. Given the stakes for Gulf security and global energy markets, independent confirmation from Kuwaiti, Bahraini, or US sources will be essential before these claims can be treated as verified rather than part of the ongoing information contest surrounding this conflict.