Milan, June 3 (LaPresse) – Reciprocal attacks took place overnight between Iran and the United States. Iran, according to the US military, launched missiles at Kuwait and Bahrain, which the United States said were either intercepted or failed to reach their targets, while Washington, for its part, carried out strikes against an Iranian ground military control station on Qeshm Island, in the Strait of Hormuz. According to the account provided by US Central Command (Centcom), the two missiles launched by Tehran toward Kuwait disintegrated in flight, while US and Bahraini forces intercepted the missiles headed for Bahrain. The Revolutionary Guards stated that they had targeted the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and another country in their attack, without naming Kuwait. According to the Pasdaran, Iran launched the attack in response to the United States firing a missile into the engine room of an oil tanker flying the Botswana flag that was attempting to reach Iran despite the US blockade. “We had already warned that in the event of aggression, the response would be different and more severe, and we acted accordingly,” the Revolutionary Guard said in its statement. Regarding the oil tanker, the version provided by US Central Command (Centcom) is that US forces implemented “blockade measures against the Botswana-flagged M/T Lexie while it was transiting international waters toward Kharg Island” and that “a US aircraft neutralized the vessel by launching a Hellfire missile into the ship’s engine room” after “the ship’s crew ignored repeated warnings and failed to comply with US forces’ directives on multiple occasions over a 24-hour period”.
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