DUBAI/WASHINGTON - Iran targeted a U.S. air base in Kuwait on Thursday after the United States struck what Washington described as an Iranian drone operation near the Strait of Hormuz and President Donald Trump rejected a reported compromise deal with Tehran.

The attacks, while limited, highlighted the fragility of negotiations to turn the tenuous ceasefire that took effect in early April into an agreement to end the three-month-old war that has killed thousands, and reopen the vital shipping route.

U.S. Central Command said U.S. forces had shot down five Iranian attack drones and struck a ground control station in the port city of Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a sixth drone. Kuwaiti forces had then intercepted a ballistic missile fired towards the country, which hosts a large U.S. base.

"These actions were measured, purely defensive and intended to maintain the ceasefire," a U.S. official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about military operations, told Reuters earlier.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had targeted the U.S. base responsible for an early-morning attack near Bandar Abbas airport and that any repeat would lead to a "more decisive response", Tasnim news agency reported.

Kuwait condemned the attack and demanded that Iran immediately halt what it called a serious escalation.

The violence, the second flare-up this week, coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha celebrated across the region, where multiple countries have been caught up in the conflict triggered by U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28.

In Lebanon, which Iran says must be part of any overall agreement to end hostilities, Israel said it had begun striking infrastructure of Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Tyre and had carried out a strike in the capital Beirut.

The Lebanese army said a strike had killed one of its soldiers, while Israel, which has displaced hundreds of thousands of people with a push deep into Lebanon in pursuit of Hezbollah, said air raid sirens had gone off in its north.

Oil prices rebounded, with U.S. crude futures up around 3% after falling 5% on Wednesday, while stocks fell and the dollar rose on fading investor confidence in a peace deal that many see as key to easing global inflation risks.

TRUMP: NO COUNTRY WILL CONTROL STRAIT

Trump has repeatedly said the end of the war is close but told media at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday he was not yet satisfied by the negotiations and that the U.S. was not discussing easing sanctions, one of Tehran's demands.

He dismissed an Iranian state TV report about an unofficial draft of an agreement to restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to prewar levels within a month, with Iran and Gulf state Oman jointly managing traffic.

Trump said no single country would have control over the waterway, and appeared to threaten Oman, with which the U.S. has decades-long military and economic ties.

"Nobody's going to control (the strait)," Trump said. "It's international waters, and Oman will behave just like everybody else or we'll have to blow them up. They understand that, they'll be fine."

Oman has not said anything about the idea of joint control of the strait with Iran, with which it says it has discussed freedom of navigation.

Tehran expressed solidarity with Oman after what it called "U.S. officials' threats". Iran's Revolutionary Guards reasserted their control of the strait, saying they had stopped two vessels and let 26 through in the past 24 hours. More than 100 ships would pass daily on average before the war.

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a letter to parliament that Iran had emerged strengthened by the war and urged legislators to preserve national unity, repair damage and address hardship, inflation and corruption, state media said.

Tehran was insisting on the United States releasing Iranian funds, the deputy secretary of its National Security Council, Ali Bagheri Kani, said, according to a Tasnim report.

Iran is also seeking an end to a U.S. blockade on its ports and the lifting of sanctions, which the U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday it had extended by adding Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority, set up to manage passage through the strait.

Foreign vessels passed freely through the waterway before the war under international legal guarantees.

Iranian state TV said the draft deal would also have the U.S. withdraw military forces from the immediate vicinity, with further discussion on the issue of U.S. troops in the region. The White House said the report was a "complete fabrication." Tehran did not comment.

Iranian sources have said the nuclear issue will be discussed in further talks over 60 days - something that may not be acceptable to some of Trump's closest supporters, who want its nuclear program disbanded. Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes only.

"The bottom line is Iran's never going to have a nuclear weapon," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

(Reporting by Reuters' bureaux; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Stephen Coates and Hugh Lawson)

People walk past an anti-U.S. billboard depicting U.S. President Donald Trump and the Strait of Hormuz, in Tehran, Iran, May 26, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS Majid Asgaripour Reuters

People ride past an anti-U.S. billboard depicting U.S. President Donald Trump and the Strait of Hormuz, in Tehran, Iran, May 25, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS Majid Asgaripour Reuters

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