Iran Buries US Wedding Attack Victims as Missiles Strike US Base in Kuwait
Escalation of Conflict and Its Aftermath
Funeral for Wedding Attack Victims
DUBAI, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Iranian mourners carried caskets at a funeral on Thursday for victims of a U.S. airstrike said to have struck a wedding party, and Tehran launched missiles and drones overnight at a U.S. base in Kuwait, after the war's biggest escalation in more than a month.
Mourners assembled in the late afternoon outside the village of Kuhestak in Sirik County, along a stretch of the Strait of Hormuz coast that was hit by heavy U.S. airstrikes late on Tuesday.
Iranian state television on Thursday said that a 22-year-old woman had died in hospital following the strike that hit a home during a wedding, taking the total reported death toll to five. Iranian officials said that nearly 70 were wounded.
Reactions from US and Iran
Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Thursday that the United States was looking into the incident.
"We're investigating it because obviously we care. We want to know," he said. "If we do make mistakes, again, this is a big difference between us and Iran, when our military makes mistakes, they learn from them to try to get better from them," Vance added.
The U.S. military said it was aware of the Iranian reports but it "never targets civilians".
Scenes from the Funeral
At the funeral for four victims from the wedding, Iran's Mehr news agency video showed a pickup truck carrying a flag-draped coffin beneath a canopy of palm fronds. A reporter in front of the truck said, "This is the body of Martyr Amir-Mohammad Karimi, a 4-year-old child who was martyred in an attack on the country’s south by the criminal American regime."
In other footage of the funeral, mourners threw petals into the air as doleful music played from a loudspeaker. A casket was carried past a row of soldiers standing at attention with rifles.
“If it was a military location, it wouldn’t be so painful. This was a wedding ceremony, but they turned people's joy into mourning," the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted a local man as saying.
US Bombardments and Iranian Response
US Airstrikes and Oil Market Impact
U.S. CARRIED OUT HEAVY BOMBARDMENTS ON TUESDAY
Washington launched the airstrikes on Tuesday, hitting what it said were military targets along the coast in retaliation for Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The sudden escalation of the Iran war has caused a surge in oil prices to levels unseen since July. Prices rose for a fourth straight day on Thursday, taking Brent crude futures over $96 a barrel. [O/R]
Iranian Counterattacks
Iran reported 18 dead in the last U.S. assault. It responded on Wednesday to the U.S. strikes with attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, and carried out further attacks early on Thursday, saying it was targeting another U.S. base, in Kuwait.
Kuwait's military said its air defences had intercepted missiles and drones. But following that, the war's biggest flareup since July appeared to subside, with no more major attacks from either side reported as Thursday wore on.
Broader Context and Ongoing Tensions
Recent Lull and Operation Epic Fury
The month of August was largely quiet in the Gulf after U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly halted two weeks of intensive airstrikes in July, having been warned by his military that Washington was running low on munitions.
Trump has yet to achieve the aims he set out when he launched Operation Epic Fury in February: to end Iran's nuclear programme, halt its ability to attack its neighbours and create conditions for Iranians to topple their leadership.
Iran's Economic Struggles and Strategic Goals
Impact of US Blockade
Iran's economy has suffered severely from a U.S. blockade. But its clerical rulers remain in power and aim to emerge from the war stronger than before, demanding the lifting of sanctions and hoping to collect fees from ships that use the strait, which carried a fifth of global oil and gas shipments before the war.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Peter Graff and Costas Pitas; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Alex Richardson and Cynthia Osterman)
