Kuwait on Sunday accused Iran of a “dangerous escalation” after a fresh strike targeted the Gulf nation’s power plants and water desalination facilities.
In a statement, Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday’s attack on a power generation station and water facility violated international law, which prohibits assaults on critical civilian infrastructure.
Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy condemned the strikes as “heinous Iranian aggression,” saying they followed other weekend attacks on facilities under the ministry’s authority.
The ministry said crews had extinguished a fire sparked by Saturday’s attack and that repair work was underway to prevent disruptions to electricity and water supplies.
Kuwait, home to American military bases and US troops, has been hit repeatedly amid the back-and-forth strikes between Washington and Tehran.
Desalination is central to Kuwait’s water security, with roughly 90% of the country’s drinking water produced by removing salt from seawater, typically through reverse osmosis, a process that forces water through ultrafine membranes.
The same technology supplies about 86% of potable water in nearby Oman and around 70% of Saudi Arabia’s drinking water.
The latest attacks on Kuwait’s desalination plants come after the US reportedly struck Iran’s own water facility in the southern province of Hormozgan, according to Iran’s IRNA state media.
The strike was said to have destroyed the desalination plant and cut off water supplies for about 10,000 people, with another such plant allegedly damaged in Iran’s Qeshm Island.
President Trump had long warned that the US would target Iranian civilian infrastructure, including bridges, power plants and water facilitiesm if Tehran did not return to the negotiating table.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, has warned that attacks on water plants in the Middle East would constitute war crimes under the Geneva Conventions.
With Post wires
