U.S. Central Command said Friday, Nov. 13, that its forces shot down two single-use Iranian attack drones heading toward Bahrain, with no injuries or damage reported, and denied Tehran’s claim that it had destroyed a U.S. radar used to detect threats early there.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had targeted the radar. The corps described the action as retaliation for what it said was a U.S. air attack on a telecommunications tower in Sirik, a port in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province. The competing accounts could not be independently confirmed.
Bahrain had not immediately commented. The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain, making the island kingdom an important American military hub in the Gulf. According to the Associated Press, Iran’s claim was the first report since September that Tehran had targeted a facility in Bahrain.
The episode adds to tensions during a fragile pause in the conflict between Iran and the United States. The conflict began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in February and spread across the region. Washington says the drones were intercepted before causing harm.
Tehran says its claimed radar strike was a response to an earlier attack.