Bahrain intercepts Iranian aerial attacks as Tehran says it attacked US base

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. 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, Yemeni forces fighting for the internationally recognised Saudi-backed government said they ‌were withdrawing from an area overlooking the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, leaving the Houthis in control.

The government’s retreat from the Bab el-Mandeb ‌area hands the Houthis greater leverage over the maritime chokepoint, creating a potent pressure point on global shipping while Iran continues to disrupt traffic ​through the Strait of Hormuz on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula. This dual squeeze would further isolate Gulf oil producers from their main shipping routes. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is one of the world’s most important and busiest routes for global seaborne commodity and goods ​shipments, particularly from Asia to Europe via Egypt’s Suez Canal.

The southern Yemeni forces said they were redeploying toward Aden, where the government is based, ⁠as the Houthis — who control much of the north, including the capital Sanaa and Yemen’s most populous ‌areas — ‌increase ​pressure on the southern areas still under government control. “The Southern Armed Forces announce the implementation of a redeployment operation for its forces from Dhubab Airport and the Bab el-Mandeb ⁠area, west of Taiz Governorate,” the southern forces ​said in a statement.

“This step is taken based ​on the priority of securing the capital, Aden, and the neighbouring governorates, as well as strengthening the front lines and ‌addressing existing threats.” Government forces launched a military ​campaign in October to recapture the strategic coastal areas from the powerful militia, which had pushed south in ⁠September in an attempt to seize control of ⁠Yemen’s entire Red Sea ​coast. The lightning offensive brought the Houthis within reach of Bab el-Mandeb.

The escalation in fighting, which broke a 2022 UN-brokered truce, became another volatile front in the wider US-Israeli war on Iran, as the Houthis continue to launch attacks on Saudi Arabia, a key US ally and the world’s biggest crude exporter. Houthi attacks on the kingdom, which had enjoyed relative calm during the early months of the nine-month-old Iran war, have disrupted flights and oil supplies as the Houthis struck Saudi ports, airports and ‌facilities of state oil ⁠company Saudi Aramco — including the kingdom’s Red Sea oil export hub of Yanbu.

In response, Saudi Arabia struck Houthi targets in Yemen, a country mired in civil war since 2014, when the Houthis ‌pushed the government south. Impoverished Yemen has been grappling with one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Fighting is intensifying around the western region ​of Taiz, with humanitarian conditions worsening. The city, which hosts about half of the ​300,000 people displaced across Yemen by the latest fighting, remains besieged.

Aid supplies are unable to enter, and civilians are unable to leave. – Reuters