An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Shahed-136 drone struck Terminal 1 of Kuwait International Airport on Wednesday 3 June, killing one person and injuring 631. The dead man was an Indian national working inside the building, which had reopened only two days earlier after a 55-day wartime closure. The IRGC is Iran's ideological military branch, and the Shahed-136 is a one-way attack drone, a loitering munition that flies into its target. This was the first Iranian strike on an active civilian passenger terminal in the war.
The IRGC first claimed the attack as retaliation for US strikes on Qeshm Island, then denied hitting the terminal at all, blaming a failed US Patriot interceptor. Kuwaiti closed-circuit footage shows a Shahed-136 in direct impact. US Central Command (CENTCOM), the US military command for the Middle East, called the Patriot claim 'totally false' and the strike 'deliberate, calculated, and unjustified'2.
That gap, between a denial and the airport's own camera, sits on top of an escalating run of attacks on Kuwait. Iran fired two ballistic missiles at US forces there on 31 May, continued striking Kuwait alongside Sirik Island on 1 June, and earlier hit Ali Al Salem Air Base, which led Kuwait to invoke Article 51 self-defence. The denial may reflect genuine command confusion rather than deception: under the IRGC's devolved launch doctrine, provincial units hold their own firing authority, and Tehran's centre cannot always verify what its 31 units fired.
