Several U.S. military aircraft crashed in Kuwait early on Monday, but all crew members survived and were in stable condition, Kuwait’s Ministry of Defence said, as conflict widened across the Middle East. In a separate incident, smoke was seen rising from the vicinity of the U.S. Embassy compound in Kuwait City, and fire trucks and ambulances were in the area, a witness told Reuters.
Neither the U.S. State Department nor the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait responded to requests for comment on the embassy incident. The third day in a row that Iran has launched retaliation strikes on neighbouring Gulf states in reaction to Israeli and American attacks on the Islamic Republic, Kuwait intercepted hostile drones earlier Monday.
The Kuwait Defence Ministry statement, which was carried by the state news agency, said the crews from the crashed aircraft were evacuated and transferred to the hospital and were in stable condition. It added that the response was carried out in coordination with U.S. forces. Iran’s state media cited the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as saying Iranian armed forces hit a U.S. plane that crashed in Kuwait.
Online footage that Reuters confirmed was captured in Kuwait’s Al Jahra region showed a person parachuting and a military plane plummeting from the sky in the same frame. The Kuwaiti statement did not specify how many aircraft were involved. Two workers were slightly injured by falling debris at Kuwait’s Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, Kuwait’s National Petroleum Company said on X.
The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait cautioned its people not to visit the embassy because of the ongoing threat of drone and missile attacks in the nation. People were warned to stay indoors, stay away from windows on the lowest floor of their home, and avoid going outside. No injuries were reported after Kuwait air defences intercepted the majority of the drones near Rumaithiya and Salwa neighbourhoods, the state news agency cited the director-general of the civil defence as saying.
Reuters witnesses reported hearing a succession of loud explosions in Dubai and Doha, the capital of Qatar, on Monday morning. Reuters witnesses reported hearing sirens and loud booms earlier in Kuwait. Tehran said it would target U.S. bases in the region after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Saturday.
Additionally, it has affected a variety of business and residential districts in Gulf cities, intensifying the conflict’s influence on important regional gateways for trade and aviation.
