Iran strikes Bahrain base as Saudi-backed forces retreat in Yemen
Bahrain says it intercepted Iranian drones before they reached their targets, while Tehran claims six drones hit a U.S. radar at Al-Riffa.
Iran fired drones at U.S. bases in Bahrain early Sunday and its allies pressed an offensive in Yemen, where Saudi-backed government forces announced a retreat from the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, in a twin setback for Washington and its Gulf partners.
Bahrain's Defense Force said its air defenses intercepted and destroyed "several" Iranian aerial attacks before they reached their targets and that its units remained ready to defend the kingdom. The statement, reported by Iran International and reproduced by the Bahraini newspaper Al Bilad, did not specify the number of interceptions or the defensive weapons used.
Competing accounts of the attack
Separately, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that six drones had targeted a U.S. air-defense radar at Bahrain's Al-Riffa helicopter base. Neither the condition of the radar nor the outcome of the claimed mission has been independently established, and the two announcements cannot be combined into a verified account of a single engagement, because Bahrain did not say whether its interceptions accounted for all six drones.
Bahrain hosts the headquarters of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, the U.S. Fifth Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces. U.S. forces reported destroying two Iranian drones on November 13 without damage or casualties, a separate engagement that does not establish the result of Sunday's claimed attack.
CNBC reported that the attacks on Bahrain were likely to increase pressure on President Donald Trump to resolve the war he launched nearly nine months ago. Major warfare between the United States and Iran has calmed since the early phase of the conflict, but diplomacy has stalled, leaving little immediate prospect of a resolution.
Yemeni forces fall back
In Yemen, the Southern Armed Forces, the main force fighting for the internationally recognized government in the south, said it was redeploying from Dhubab Airport and the Bab el-Mandeb area west of Taiz governorate to secure Aden and neighboring provinces.
The move signaled the apparent end of a six-week government counteroffensive to drive the Houthis from the mouth of the Red Sea. It raises the prospect of new Houthi advances toward Aden, the government's base since the Iran-aligned movement drove it from the capital Sanaa more than a decade ago. There was no immediate response from the Houthis or from Saudi Arabia.
Houthi authorities also announced the release of 600 fighters associated with the Saudi-backed government under a previously announced amnesty.