Iran claims second drone attack on US radar in Bahrain in three days as Gulf tensions rise

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said on Sunday it had launched six drones at an American air defence radar at a base in Bahrain, the second time in three days that Tehran has claimed to have struck a United States military site in the Gulf kingdom, as a war that began in February grinds on with diplomacy stalled.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had targeted the radar system at Bahrain's Riffa Air Base in response to what it described as hostile American actions, according to a statement carried by the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency. Sirens sounded across Bahrain on Sunday morning as the Interior Ministry urged residents to remain calm and proceed to the nearest safe location.

The United States military said it had intercepted two Iranian drones on Friday but has yet to comment on Sunday's claim. The claim, if confirmed, would mark a further escalation in a war whose diplomacy appears to have run into the sand.

Bahrain, a small island kingdom in the Gulf, is home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. A Pentagon inspector general's report released in September found that Iranian attacks had damaged or destroyed buildings at American installations in eight countries, including Bahrain, in the first four months of the war between the United States, Israel and Iran, which began on February 28.

Sirens in Bahrain

Bahrain's Interior Ministry issued two alerts within about three hours on Sunday, the first at about 4.30am local time, warning of a potential threat and urging residents to seek shelter. It gave no further details about the nature of the threat.

The Bahrain Defence Force said its air defence systems had thwarted several Iranian aerial attacks targeting the kingdom. The Guard said the Strait of Hormuz remained closed and warned that any American attack would draw a more severe response.

The ministry's alerts were the second set of warnings Bahrainis have received in three days. On Friday, the Revolutionary Guard said it had destroyed an American early-warning radar system in Bahrain in retaliation for what it described as an air attack on a telecommunications tower in southern Iran. The US military's Central Command denied that claim, saying it had shot down two Iranian drones and that there were no injuries or damage.

The Guard called Friday's operation a serious warning over what it described as aerial provocations and oil smuggling in the Strait of Hormuz. Reuters reported that Friday marked the first time since early September that Iran had claimed an attack on American military assets in a Gulf country.

Tehran has told the United Nations Security Council it would respond immediately to renewed American or Israeli attacks. Bahrain has called for the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 2817, which condemned Iranian attacks on Bahrain and other countries in the region and demanded that they stop.

A waterway under pressure

The confrontation is also playing out at sea, in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel through which a large share of the world's oil is shipped. The Revolutionary Guard's navy said two oil tankers struck sea mines on Saturday while trying to pass through the strait, after switching off their navigation and tracking systems and using what it called an unauthorised route.

The Guard said two other tankers had turned back towards the Gulf after receiving warnings from its maritime traffic control centre. Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera's Mohammed Vall said there had been two similar incidents the previous day and that the number of tankers hitting mines had increased.

Iran claims the strait is under its full control and that only Iran and Oman have the right to control it, a claim the United States rejects. Tehran blamed the tanker owners for failing to comply with the regulations Iran has imposed on passage through the strait.

The road to a deal, or a wider war

Diplomatic efforts to stop the attacks and reopen the Strait of Hormuz remain stalled. Iran's parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told Al Jazeera that Tehran wanted to move beyond a state of no war, no peace.

Ghalibaf said in the interview last week that Iran had conveyed seven conditions for a deal through a Qatari mediator and was awaiting an official American response. The conditions he outlined included lifting the American naval blockade and sanctions, releasing frozen Iranian funds, ending hostilities on all fronts and formally declaring the war over.

The administration of US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has tightened sanctions and maintained the blockade on Iranian ports, showing little sign of accepting Tehran's terms.

That pattern is what worries analysts most. Saeid Golkar, an associate professor of political science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, told Al Jazeera that both sides may prefer to avoid a full-scale war, but the danger lies in miscalculation, and limited exchanges could eventually lead to a broader conflict neither side intended.

Twice in three days, Bahrainis have been woken by sirens and told to seek shelter, and there is no sign yet that the next alert will not come.