Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Bahrain on Tuesday, its Revolutionary Guard said, targeting the headquarters of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, as a widening conflict between Iran and the United States spilled further across the Gulf.
Air-raid sirens sounded in Bahrain, and its authorities said their defenses had repelled the assault. The strikes came hours after the United States carried out a fresh wave of attacks on Iranian targets, according to Al Jazeera, part of a cycle of retaliation that has intensified through the summer.
Competing accounts
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had struck the US naval base at Juffair, in the Bahraini capital Manama, along with other military sites. It claimed to have destroyed fuel depots, air-defense systems and radar installations, the Jerusalem Post reported. Those claims could not be independently verified, and the United States did not immediately confirm any damage to its forces.
Bahrain's Defence Force offered a starkly different account, saying its air defenses had "successfully intercepted and destroyed" the incoming Iranian attacks and describing them as part of a "systematic hostile approach", according to Middle East Eye. Bahraini authorities did not report casualties or major damage on land. Iran also said it had launched strikes toward Jordan.
Deaths at sea
The clearest casualties came in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow shipping lane through which much of the world's oil passes. Two tankers were hit, killing one crew member and wounding several others, Middle East Eye reported. India's foreign ministry, whose nationals were among the crew, condemned the attack, saying it opposed "acts of violence targeting seafarers and disrupting free and safe navigation".
The attacks on shipping have heightened fears for the security of the strait, a chokepoint for global energy supplies, and have unsettled oil markets.
A deepening war
Tuesday's exchanges were the latest in a conflict between Iran and the United States, alongside Israel, that has escalated sharply in 2026, with repeated rounds of strikes and counter-strikes. Each side casts its actions as a response to the other: Iran says it is retaliating for American attacks, while Washington has described its operations as necessary to degrade Iran's military.
Bahrain, a small island state that hosts the US Fifth Fleet, has found itself repeatedly on the front line of the confrontation. As sirens again sounded over Manama, governments across the region and beyond renewed calls for restraint, warning that each new strike raises the risk of a wider war.
