Iran Attacks US Base in Bahrain: The IRGC Riffa Claim

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has claimed its second drone attack on American forces in Bahrain in three days, stating that six drones of its Aerospace Force struck a U.S. air defence radar at the Al-Riffa helicopter base. The statement, carried by Iranian state broadcasting late on November 14, described the strike as the second phase of the Guards’ retaliation against the United States, declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and warned that any further American aggression would be met with a harsher response. The Guards did not name the radar type, and neither the U.S. military nor the government of Bahrain had confirmed any damage or casualties by the morning of November 15. The claim highlights a significant shift from a single warning strike to a declared and numbered campaign against the American sensors on which Gulf air defences rely.

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry issued nationwide alerts on the morning of November 15, its first such warnings since September, urging residents to “remain calm, proceed to the nearest safe location, and follow news through official channels” without naming the source of the threat. Residents reported a first series of explosions at around 4:00 a.m. local time and a second at around 6:30 a.m. as sirens sounded across the island, though no government has said whether the blasts were interceptions or impacts. The attack follows the Guards’ claim on November 13 that they had destroyed an early warning radar in Bahrain in response to a strike on a telecommunications tower in Sirik, on the Hormozgan coast, which U.S. Central Command rejected as false, stating that American forces had shot down two one-way attack drones heading for the island with no injuries or damage.

The renewed pressure on Bahrain came on the same morning that Saudi air defences destroyed two ballistic missiles fired at Riyadh by Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, widely known as the Houthis, with Saudi authorities also reporting drones intercepted over the Eastern Province. The Guards’ navy separately claimed that two oil tankers had exploded and caught fire after hitting naval mines on November 14 while using what it called an unauthorised route south of the Strait of Hormuz with their identification systems switched off, although it named no vessel and no maritime authority has confirmed a mine strike. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said on November 13 that the United States had no need for further military action, less than two weeks after U.S. strikes on Qeshm Island.

Bahrain hosts Naval Support Activity Bahrain, home to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the Fifth Fleet, and lies less than 300 kilometres from Iran’s southern coast. The base was struck with missiles and drones on February 28, the first day of the war, when the Bahrain Defence Force said it had shot down 45 missiles and nine drones, with the Fifth Fleet headquarters building, a barracks, warehouses and communications towers all having been hit. A U.S. Congressional Research Service update on September 23 put the cost of that damage at no less than $400 million. Bahrain and U.S. Central Command opened a combined air defence command post at Ras al Bar Camp in December 2025, less than three months before the war began.