Bahrain intercepted and destroyed several Iranian aerial attacks, it said on Sunday, while Tehran said it had struck a US military base in the Gulf kingdom amid uncertainty over a deal to end the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The first such interceptions by Bahraini air defences since September followed two warnings of potential threats, urging residents to seek shelter.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had attacked a US military base in Bahrain in retaliation for “hostile US actions”, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.
The Bahraini military said its air defences had intercepted several Iranian aerial attacks before they reached their targets, accusing Tehran of continuing its “systematic hostile approach” towards the kingdom.
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The Revolutionary Guards said they had launched six drones targeting a US air-defence radar at the Al-Rifaa helicopter base in Bahrain, Iranian state-run Press TV reported. There was no immediate confirmation from US or Bahraini authorities.
Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, urged citizens and residents to remain calm and proceed to the nearest safe location, the interior ministry said. It did not provide further details on the threats.
Two days earlier the Revolutionary Guards said they had attacked a US early-warning radar in Bahrain. The US military denied this, saying it had intercepted two Iranian drones without any damage.
Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have yet to produce a breakthrough, though Washington and Tehran have held off on direct attacks in the war that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28th and then spread across the region, with Tehran launching missile and drone attacks on US bases in Gulf countries.
US president Donald Trump has said in recent days that he might hold off on attacking Iran if the US faces no new provocations from Tehran or the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, but that he would maintain a US naval blockade, Reuters reported on Saturday.
On another front, however, the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition fighting them have continued to exchange attacks, with the coalition saying on Sunday it had intercepted two Houthi ballistic missiles launched towards the Saudi capital Riyadh and three drones in the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province. – Reuters
