Bahrain intercepted and destroyed several Iranian air attacks, it said on Sunday, while Tehran said it struck a US military base in the Gulf kingdom, amid uncertainty over a deal to end the US-Israeli war against Iran.
The first such interceptions by Bahrain’s air defenses since September followed two warnings of potential threats, urging residents to take cover.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it attacked a US military base in Bahrain in retaliation for “hostile actions by the United States”, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.
Bahrain’s military said its air defenses had intercepted several Iranian air attacks before they reached their targets, accusing Tehran of continuing its “systematic hostile approach” towards the kingdom.
The Revolutionary Guards said they had launched six drones targeting the US air defense radar at the Al-Rifaa helicopter base in Bahrain, Iranian state television Press TV reported. There was no immediate confirmation from U.S. or Bahraini authorities.
Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, urged its citizens and residents to remain calm and go to the nearest place of safety, the Interior Ministry said.
Two days earlier, the Revolutionary Guards announced that they had attacked an American early warning radar in Bahrain. The US military denied this, claiming to have intercepted two Iranian drones without any damage.
Diplomatic efforts to end the nearly nine-month conflict have yet to succeed, with sporadic attacks continuing despite a broader lull in fighting between the United States and Iran.
The war began with US and Israeli strikes against Iran on February 28 and later spread across the region, with Tehran launching missile and drone attacks on US military bases in Gulf countries.
President Donald Trump has said in recent days that he might refrain from attacking Iran if the United States does not face further provocations from Tehran or the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, but that he would maintain the U.S. naval blockade, Reuters reported on Saturday.
On another front, however, the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition fighting them continued to trade attacks, with the coalition claiming on Sunday to have intercepted two Houthi ballistic missiles launched toward the Saudi capital Riyadh and three drones in the kingdom’s oil-rich eastern province.
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