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Iran Conflict 2026
25JUL

Artesh claims Kuwait and Bahrain strikes

2 min read
11:58UTC

Iran's regular army, not the IRGC, claimed the 16 July drone strikes on Kuwait and Bahrain and named them phase ten of Operation Saeqeh.

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Key takeaway

Iran's regular army claimed the Kuwait and Bahrain strikes under its own named operation, stepping out of the IRGC's shadow.

The regular Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Artesh), not the IRGC, claimed the 16 July drone strikes on Kuwait's Ali Al Salem Air Base and Bahrain's Sheikh Isa air base, and gave the campaign a name: the tenth phase of Operation Saeqeh (Lightning). 1

Every prior Gulf reprisal in this war had carried the IRGC's name. The IRGC fired on Jordan's Azraq base and struck three Gulf states on 9 July , and ran the Gulf-wide retaliation that answered the blockade . This time the IRGC claimed only the separate hit on Jordan's Azraq base, while the Artesh took Kuwait and Bahrain under its own banner.

A named, numbered, multi-phase operation implies sustained institutional planning, distinct from the corps' improvised strike-and-claim pattern. The Artesh has spent this war in the IRGC's shadow as the conventional-defence force; a numbered army operation is a bureaucratic claim on the war's prestige, and such claims outlast the strikes that prompt them. Mojtaba Khamenei was installed through IRGC channels, so an army asserting its own operational brand under a Supreme Leader it did not choose is a fault line worth watching.

Kuwait's armed forces said their air defences intercepted hostile drones on 16 July, independent, non-Iranian confirmation that the attack was real. 2 A quieter reading also fits: the two forces may simply be dividing targets, with no rivalry implied. Even so, no earlier Iranian strike this war has carried a numbered army operation's name.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran has two separate armed forces that don't answer to a single military command: the regular Army, called Artesh, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, which is the more ideological force that has led most of the war's retaliatory strikes. This time it was Artesh, not the IRGC, that claimed credit for drone strikes on air bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, giving its campaign the name Operation Saeqeh and calling this attack its tenth phase.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Iran's constitution establishes Artesh and the IRGC as parallel, formally equal armed forces answering separately to the Supreme Leader, with neither holding overall operational primacy over the other.

That dual-track structure gives each branch an incentive to publicise its own named, numbered campaign, Artesh's Operation Saeqeh among them, rather than issue a single joint claim.

What could happen next?
  • Meaning

    Artesh's willingness to publicise its own named campaign suggests the regular Army wants independent credit for retaliation, rather than letting the IRGC's messaging define the war's narrative.

Sources:Tech Times
Mentions:Iranian Army →Operation Saeqeh →Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) →Kuwait →Bahrain →Jordan →Ali Al Salem Air Base →Sheikh Isa airbase →Iran-Iraq War →Iraq →Iran →Mojtaba Khamenei →Tehran →
First Reported In

Update #155 · US bombing moves inland as blockade hardens

Tech Times· 18 Jul 2026
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Causes and effects
This Event
Artesh claims Kuwait and Bahrain strikes
A second Iranian force is now claiming strikes under its own banner, a sign of institutional jockeying inside Tehran's war effort.
Led to
Iran fires back across the Gulf again
The Army's named Operation Saeqeh phase 10 followed the 14 July Gulf-wide retaliation.
Occurred 14 Jul 2026
Read story →
Iran's army widens Saeqeh to three states
The 16 July Artesh claim on Kuwait and Bahrain preceded and matches the widened 18 July phase-14/15 claim.
Occurred 18 Jul 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi
Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi
Golden Global told Turkey's KAP on 4 September that the parties OFAC named are not its customers and it had no dealings with them. It plans to contest the designation.
CENTCOM (US Central Command)
CENTCOM (US Central Command)
CENTCOM says its ships evaded the IRGC's 5 September missiles unharmed, then disabled two Iranian tankers and destroyed a third within hours. Admiral Cooper named that three-for-two ratio himself.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
The IRGC Navy claimed strikes on six vessels, three tankers and three US-linked ships, on 5 and 6 September, naming none of them. It conceded its own tankers were hit.
China's foreign ministry
China's foreign ministry
Spokesman Lin Jian rejected Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's 25 August warning that Iranian oil buyers face an "economic D-Day", saying sanctions do not help and that Beijing would safeguard its own rights and interests. China's Iranian crude imports had already halved for unrelated reasons.
Iraq's government and Erbil authorities
Iraq's government and Erbil authorities
Erbil authorities said 10 explosive-laden drones were shot down over the city on 1-2 September with no casualties. Iraq's government condemned the attacks without naming Iran as their source, and neither Washington nor Baghdad confirmed the IRGC's claim to have hit US bases there.
Bahrain Defence Force
Bahrain Defence Force
The General Command said air defences intercepted several Iranian missiles and drones on 1-2 September and called the use of such weapons against civilians and private property a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.