AFP photo.
Iran said it hit U.S. military bases in Kuwait and the UAE on Sept. 4, vowing to avenge a wedding attack it blamed on Washington as U.S. Vice President JD Vance said the strike was being investigated.
The new clashes, which began with U.S. raids on Sunday, have deepened the impasse in the six-month war, as Iran maintains a stranglehold on the strategic Strait of Hormuz and Washington presses its counter-blockade of Iranian ports.
Kuwait's army said Sept. 4 it intercepted a missile and drone attack from Iran, with the Iranian army reporting that it hit U.S. assets at the Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base "with missiles and drones".
Kuwait called the strikes a "grave breach of the rules of international law".
Iran's army also said it struck Al Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, but the Gulf country reported no such attack.
The strikes came after the Iranian Red Crescent said a missile attack on a wedding in the Iranian coastal town of Kuhestak killed four people on Tuesday night, including a child, and wounded more than 50.
Vance said Washington was probing the alleged strike but cast doubt on reports out of Iran.
"I know that we're investigating," he told a White House briefing.
"I will say that the Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe about what's happened in the conflict thus far. So I'm extremely sceptical of this."
Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief Ahmad Vahidi vowed on Sept. 4 to avenge the victims of the attack.
"The pure blood of these oppressed martyrs... will not go unanswered," he said.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman Tim Hawkins said "the U.S. military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC", referring to Iran's Guards.
Extensive U.S. bombardment of sites across Iran killed at least 19 Iranians between Tuesday and Wednesday, after President Donald Trump said his military was prepared to attack Iran "any time we want".
Iran's Tasnim news agency added on Sept. 4 that six members of the Iranian army's naval forces were killed by U.S. attacks this week, but it was not immediately clear if the six were among the 19 dead.
Tehran retaliated with strikes across the Middle East this week, saying it targeted U.S. bases and forces in the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Iraq's Kurdistan region.
Vance said however that he "wouldn't call it a war," claiming that "right now, there is no active shooting."
The vice-president acknowledge that "there have been places where this has flared up" but said major combat operations only lasted for six weeks after the U.S.-Israel war started on February 28.
Iran's security chief Mohsen Rezaei warned the U.S. on Wednesday that the Islamic republic had adopted a "new strategy" in the war that "will shatter your foundations".
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced confidence on Sept. 4 that Iran's Islamic republic could soon fall.
"This regime is currently teetering. It is weaker than ever. It is fighting for its survival," Netanyahu said at an event with Israeli military leaders.
"I am convinced that we can remove this threat once and for all."
Aside from military action, Washington has vowed to choke Iran's economy, threatening to slap sanctions on its trade partners.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright pledged on Sept. 3 that a U.S. plan for expanded sanctions targeting Iran's economic partners would deliver "absolutely maximum pressure".
Iran's top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf lashed out at Washington over the wedding attack, calling the United States "Satan".
The war erupted on Feb. 28 with U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran that killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A fragile ceasefire collapsed in July after attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of world oil supplies previously flowed.
Israel's defense minister meanwhile said his country was prepared to respond "with great force" if attacked by Iran over the Jewish high holiday season, which begins in mid-September.
"For now, they are striking throughout the region except us," Israel Katz said.
