Iran's Revolutionary Guard ordered tankers near Kuwait and Bahrain to evacuate. Will it hit one in Kuwaiti or Bahraini waters by Sept 18?

On September 8, 2026, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy ordered crews aboard oil tankers anchored or docked near ports in Kuwait and Bahrain to evacuate immediately, warning the vessels would be treated as legitimate targets. The order came hours after the U.S. military said it had struck five Iranian-linked tankers in the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf, part of an escalating conflict that had drawn regional shipping into the crossfire. Iranian state media described the warning as retaliation for the U.S. strikes and accused Kuwait and Bahrain of hosting American forces used against Iran. Despite the threat, Iran did not strike any tanker specifically within Kuwaiti or Bahraini waters over the following ten days; reported attacks during that stretch centered instead on the Strait of Hormuz and on vessels the U.S. described as Iranian-linked, amid broader exchanges between Iranian and U.S. forces. By September 18, live coverage of the widening war described the Kuwait-Bahrain tanker threat as unfulfilled even as fighting elsewhere in the Gulf continued. Predict Six's community leaned toward expecting a strike, with 65 percent voting yes; the threatened attack in those specific waters did not materialize within the window, leaving the majority prediction wrong even as the broader regional conflict escalated.