Sources say Gulf allies were disappointed that the United States did not report the Iranian attacks and ignored their warnings

CAIRO (AP) — The Trump administration is facing growing dissatisfaction with allies in the Persian Gulf who have complained they were not given enough time to prepare for the torrent of Iranian drones and missiles bombing their countries in response to strikes by the United States and Israel.

Read more: The chaos sown by Iran’s attacks across the Persian Gulf is a key element of its strategy

Officials from two Gulf states said their governments were disappointed with the way the United States handled the war, especially the initial attack on Iran on February 28. They said their country had not been informed in advance of the US-Israeli attack and complained that the US had ignored their warnings that the war would have devastating consequences for the entire region.

One official said the Gulf states were frustrated and even angry that the US military had not adequately defended them. He said that there is a belief in the region that the operation focused on defending Israel and American forces, while leaving the Gulf states to protect themselves, and he said that his country’s stock of interceptor missiles is “quickly depleting.”

Read more: Where have matters reached with the expansion of the scope of the American-Israeli attacks on Iran?

Like others in this story, the Gulf officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a secret diplomatic matter.

The governments of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates did not respond to requests for comment.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in response: “Iranian retaliatory ballistic missile attacks are down 90% because Operation Epic Fury crushes their ability to launch these weapons or produce more. President Trump is in close contact with all of our regional partners, and the Iranian regime’s terrorist attacks on its neighbors demonstrate how imperative it is for President Trump to eliminate this threat to our country and our allies.”

The Pentagon did not respond.

Official reactions from Gulf Arab states have been muted, but public figures with close ties to their governments have publicly criticized the United States, suggesting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dragged President Donald Trump into an unnecessary war.

He watches: Iranian drone missile attacks on Gulf states risk dragging more countries into war

“This is Netanyahu’s war,” Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, told CNN on Wednesday. “He somehow convinced the President (Trump) to support his views.”

Pentagon officials acknowledged this week in closed briefings with lawmakers that they are struggling to stem waves of drones launched by Iran, leaving some American targets in the Gulf region, including troops, vulnerable.

The Gulf states have emerged as valuable targets for Iran, as they are within range of Iranian short-range missiles and are packed with targets, including US forces, high-profile commercial and tourism sites, and energy facilities, disrupting the world’s oil flow.

Since the start of the war, Iran has launched at least 380 missiles and more than 1,480 drones targeting the five Persian Gulf states, according to an AP tally based on official data. At least 13 people were killed in those countries, according to local officials.

He watches: With the intensification of US-Israeli strikes, Iran says it is no longer looking to negotiate

Additionally, six American soldiers were killed in Kuwait on Sunday when an Iranian drone strike hit an operations center in a civilian port, more than 10 miles from the main Army base. The husband of one of the dead soldiers, who was part of a supplies and logistics unit stationed in Iowa, said the operations center was a shipping container-style building with no defenses.

In briefings to members of Congress on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Kaine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers that the United States would not be able to intercept many incoming drones, especially witness drones, according to three people familiar with the briefings.

At one briefing, Kaine and Hegseth did not provide any details when lawmakers pressed them on why the United States did not appear prepared for Iran to launch waves of drones at American targets in the region, according to one of the people.

That person, a US official familiar with the US security situation in the Gulf region, said the United States does not have widespread capabilities throughout the Gulf region to effectively counter waves of unidirectional drones coming to places outside traditional targets or bases outside Iraq and Syria.

Drone attacks this week on the embassy in Saudi Arabia caused a limited fire at the embassy in Riyadh, and another drone attack in the United Arab Emirates caused a small fire outside the US consulate in Dubai.

On Thursday, the United States and its Middle Eastern allies even requested help from Ukraine, which has experience countering Iranian Shahed drones, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. When asked about Zelensky’s comments, Trump told Reuters on Thursday: “I would certainly accept, you know, any help from any country.”

Read more: US and Middle Eastern countries seek drone expertise in Kiev as talks between Russia and Ukraine postpone

Badr Musa Al-Saif, a Kuwait-based analyst at Chatham House, said the United States appears to have underestimated the risks to its Arab allies in the Gulf, believing that American forces and Israel would be the main targets of Iranian retaliation.

He added, “I don’t think they saw that there would be a great deal of exposure to the Gulf,” considering that the lack of a plan to protect the Gulf states “indicates the short-sightedness of the United States.”

Frustration in some Gulf states is due in part to Israel’s relative success in shooting down drones and missiles compared with some of its neighbors, according to a person familiar with the sensitive diplomatic matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.

Their air defense systems are not nearly as powerful as Israel’s, but according to this person, American officials were somewhat puzzled that the Gulf states still showed no desire to launch a counterattack by launching missiles at Iranian targets.

Elliot Abrams, who served as special representative for Iran and Venezuela at the end of Trump’s first term, said that US national security officials and their Gulf allies knew that Iran had the ability to carry out major strikes.

Read more: Hegseth says the United States “can’t stop everything” Iran launches even as it asserts air dominance

“And the neighbors knew it and were afraid of it,” Abrams said. “But it was not at all clear that Iran would actually do it, because they had so much to lose.” He added, “These attacks will leave long-term enmity, and if they continue, the Gulf Arabs may begin attacking Iran.”

Michael Ratney, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said that while the Gulf states have an interest in seeing Iran weaken, they also have major concerns about the ongoing war — including the economic damage, instability it causes and its open-ended nature.

“What comes next? The Gulf states will have to bear the brunt no matter what,” said Ratney, who is now senior adviser to the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Price and Madhani reported from Washington. AP reporters Seung-Min Kim, Konstantin Torobin, Ben Finley and Matt Lee in Washington, Danica Kirka and Susie Blanc in London, and Joseph Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.