Alwiyat al-Waad al-Haq (AWH), a pro-Iranian Shia militant group with close ties to Kataib Hezbollah, has threatened to start attacking American military bases in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates “in retaliation for the martyrs of beloved Palestine.”
AWH has historically only carried out attacks against Saudi Arabia for its involvement against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, as well as claims by the IRGC that the Kingdom organizes domestic protests in Iran.
In a statement, AWH said:
After the persistence of the Zionist entity and its supporters in exterminating our people in steadfast Palestine and the killing, displacement and destruction we are witnessing today against the patient and struggling Palestinian people, we affirm that our patience has limits, and we give good news to the honorable and jealous members of our nation that we consider the American bases in Kuwait and the Emirates as legitimate targets for us, in response to the crimes of the Zionist entity and America. And in retaliation for the martyrs of beloved Palestine.
The threat comes as the WSJ reported that the United States Pentagon “is sending a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, to Saudi Arabia, and Patriot surface-to-air missile systems to Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE” ahead of Israel’s expected ground invasion in Gaza against Hamas.
This also comes one day after White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby accused Iran of “actively facilitating” attacks against American forces in Iraq and Syria, further noting an uptick in “rocket and drone attacks by Iranian-backed proxy groups” against American personnel in the region. Kirby added that the United States is “deeply concerned about the potential for any significant escalation of these attacks in the days ahead.”
