Iran fires two drones at Bahrain radar facility in first known attack since September

U.S. forces shot down both drones, Central Command said

Iran launched two drones at a radar facility in Bahrain overnight, and U.S. forces shot both down without injury or damage, the U.S. Central Command said, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed the attack early Friday, saying it targeted an American early warning radar. It was the first known attack on the small Gulf country since early September.

Bahrain did not respond to requests for comment and issued no public warning of the attack. The country is home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. It has been repeatedly struck by Iran during the war, now in its ninth month, but had a respite after President Trump settled into a strategy of squeezing Iran economically, the Journal reported.

Trump has signaled that he does not want to return to major combat, but the United States and Iran have continued to skirmish over control of the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. forces have quietly carried out a series of strikes in recent weeks on Iranian sites including Qeshm Island, which sits along much of the strait’s hairpin turn. The island is home to a major Revolutionary Guard naval facility, and the group uses it to launch drones and missiles.

U.S. and Gulf officials have said the strikes are designed to stop Iran from attacking ships in the waterway. Trump has played down the significance of the strikes, calling them minor.

Iran is answering in kind. On Tuesday, Iranian state media said Tehran had hit a small Omani island of Didamar that aids the navigation of ships transiting the waterway. The rocky, uninhabited outcrop is typically seen as the entry and exit point to the Persian Gulf. It has navigational equipment and a lighthouse built by the U.K. in 1914.

The U.S. military is also running near-daily operations from warships and land bases to help commercial vessels move in and out of the Persian Gulf, helping oil exports from the region reach levels near where they were at the start of the war. Iranian state media routinely report the sound of explosions along the coast.

Trump has said he wants to stick with the current economic pressure campaign. Analysts warn the expensive military effort is not sustainable and that Iran will likely escalate to pressure the U.S. to end the chokehold.

Regional mediators continue to work on a formula that might offer a diplomatic exit from the standoff. The war is squeezing their economies and putting valuable infrastructure at risk, but they also fear the U.S. could walk away and leave them to fend with an angered Iran. U.S. and Iranian negotiating positions have toughened since they reached a deal over the summer that quickly fell apart.