American warplanes crash in Kuwait by 'mistake' as 555 Iranians killed in US-Israeli assault

Several US warplanes crashed in Kuwait early on Monday, with their crew surviving, Kuwait’s Ministry of Defence confirmed, as Iran continued to launch strikes for a third day in a row, in retaliation for US and Israeli attacks.

The three fighter jets were mistakenly downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire Monday during an Iranian air assault, the US military confirmed.

Earlier on Monday, one video shared and verified by CNN and Al Jazeera, showed one of the fighter planes crashing in the country’s Al-Jahra city, located approximately 32km (19 miles) west of Kuwait City.

The video showed the plane falling into a tailspin as it crashed to the ground around 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) from the Ali Al Salem base in Kuwait, where the US had a presence.

Iran’s army confirmed that it targeted the base on Monday, as well as vessels in the Indian Ocean, adding that it launched 15 "cruise missiles" in the latest attack.

All crew members survived, with Kuwaiti authorities saying that search and rescue operations are underway, as well as an investigation to determine the cause of the crash. 

Black smoke rose from the US embassy in Kuwait. The embassy said there "is a continuing threat of missile and UAV (drone) attacks over Kuwait. Do not come to the embassy," adding: "US embassy personnel are sheltering in place".

Several American military bases and their interests in the Gulf have been struck by Tehran in recent days - including the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia - in retaliation for the joint US-Israeli assault on Iran launched on Saturday, which killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei's wife and several family members were also reportedly killed in the assassination on Saturday, according to Iranian media.

At least 555 people have been killed in Iran over the course of the past three days by the joint US-Israeli strikes, launched on Saturday, aimed at regime change.

US President Trump claimed that "at least 48" Iranian leaders have been killed in their attacks so far, including the leading naval officer and former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani.

Also confirmed killed are Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohammad Pakpour and Abdolrahim Mousavi, the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces.

Ongoing US-Israeli strikes on Iran

On Monday, the Tasnim News Agency confirmed that 41 Iranian border guards were killed by US-Israeli strikes. Meanwhile, at least 27 civilians were killed in the Eastern Azerbaijan province, located in northwest Iran, bringing the total of those killed there to 70.

Additionally, local authorities confirmed that the number of those killed in the southern province of Fars and the western province of Hamgan has risen to 43.

At least three people were killed in the western city of Sandaj after airstrikes targeted residential buildings, the city’s mayor confirmed.

The country’s central Yazd province was also hit by strikes on Monday, including the cities of Ardakan and Yazd, as well as the Yazd-Mehriz road.

The UNESCO-listed site of Golestan Palace in Tehran has also been affected by the attacks, the ISNA news agency confirmed, with windows, doors, and mirrors damaged by reverberations from the blasts.

Iranian interests outside the country have also been hit, including a new strike on a military base in Iraq housing the Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah group on Monday, while in the Kurdish city of Erbil, air defences intercepted drone attacks.

"Three strikes hit Jurf al-Nasr," a Kataeb Hezbollah source told AFP, referring to a military base that serves as one of the main bastions of the powerful armed group, which has been targeted several times since the start of the Israel-US campaign against Iran.

From the early hours of the campaign against Iran, US and Israeli strikes hit Iran-backed groups, which have vowed retaliation.

On Sunday, nine Iran-backed fighters were killed in separate strikes, including five from Kataeb Hezbollah.

Also on Sunday, Iranian state media reported that parts of the state television building in Tehran were hit by an airstrike, but broadcasting continued as normal, according to Reuters. The state broadcaster, whose headquarters in northern Tehran were previously targeted by Israel during the 12-day war in June, said that "the technical team is assessing the damage”.

​Rapid escalation

In an interview with the UK’s Daily Mail, President Donald Trump suggested that the conflict with Iran could go on "for the next four weeks".

"It's always been a four-week process. We figured it will be four weeks or so. It's always been about a four-week process so - as strong as it is, it's a big country, it'll take four weeks - or less," the British newspaper quoted Trump as saying.

To another outlet, he hinted that the campaign could take four to five weeks, while Ali Larijani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran "will not negotiate with the United States", dampening hopes that the war could soon be over.

In a post on X, Larijani denied media reports that Iranian officials had sought to initiate talks with the Trump administration following a wave of US-Israeli strikes on Iran over the weekend.

The US and Israeli strikes come months after the two countries launched a 12-day war on Iran in June, which targeted several nuclear facilities and leading commanders and nuclear scientists.

This follows heightened tensions between the US and Iran over a failure to secure a nuclear deal, despite the latest indirect talks mediated by Oman.

It also follows decades of a proxy conflict between Iran and Israel, which escalated into a series of confrontations in parallel with the war in Gaza launched in 2023, and the subsequent crisis in the Middle East.

Following the outbreak of nationwide anti-government protests in Iran in late December, US President Donald Trump made several threats to attack Iran if Tehran continued its crackdown on the demonstrators.

Thousands of people were reportedly killed in the protests.