Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it targeted a US early-warning radar in Bahrain, according to Iranian state media cited in the Times of Israel’s live blog on 13 November. The IRGC described the action as retaliation for an air attack on a telecoms tower in Sirik county, in Iran’s Hormozgan province.
The report says this is the first such claim against US military assets in a Gulf country since early September. Neither the United States nor Bahrain had commented at the time of reporting, and the claim has not been independently confirmed.
The episode comes during what the live blog describes as a fragile lull in a war that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February. In separate interviews with Salem News Channel on 12 November, President Donald Trump was reported to have said it would be “a defeat” if Iran’s regime were still in power when his term ends, and that he would strike Iran again if he saw things “going the other way”, adding that he might do so now. He also claimed the US “totally” controls the Strait of Hormuz, although the same report notes near-daily attacks on shipping there.
Bahrain hosts a major US naval presence, which is why any attack on facilities there carries regional significance. The full extent of any damage, if an attack took place, is unknown.
Reporting note: the strike claim comes from Iranian state media via a single live blog and is unverified; no confirmation or denial from the US or Bahrain had been reported. Trump’s remarks are as relayed in the same source.
Photo: Zairon / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons
