Bahrain condemns Iranian drone attack after overnight US strikes

A billboard in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, this week. Photograph: Eric Lee/Pool Reuters/AP View image in fullscreen A billboard in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, this week. Photograph: Eric Lee/Pool Reuters/AP Bahrain condemns Iranian drone attack after overnight US strikes No immediate reports of damage after Bahrain hit by ‘number of drones’ as ship in strait of Hormuz also targeted Bahrain said it was attacked by Iran with a wave of drones on Saturday, apparently in response to overnight US strikes on Iran . A ship in the strait of Hormuz was also attacked. Bahrain’s foreign ministry said a “number of drones” were launched at the country, though there were no immediate reports of damage. It condemned the attack and described it as a “flagrant threat to the security of citizens and residents”. No damage or casualties were reported in the attack on a tanker in the strait of Hormuz. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iran was suspected to be behind it. JD Vance claims US holds all the cards in Iran and will win ‘either way’ Read more Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said earlier on Saturday that it had targeted several sites of the “US terrorist army in the region”, without specifying where. Bahrain is home to the US navy’s fifth fleet. The strikes came after the US military said it struck Iranian missile and drone locations overnight, as well as coastal radar sites, in what it said was a response to an Iranian drone attack on a ship in the strait of Hormuz. The tit-for-tat strikes marked the first incidence of violence between the US and Iran since a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the two countries last week. The MOU – the first of its kind signed by the US and Iran since the latter’s 1979 Islamic revolution – extended a fragile ceasefire and set a 60-day window for talks to achieve a lasting peace. Many gaps remain between the two sides, and one of the chief obstacles is the strait of Hormuz, which the US president, Donald Trump, is keen to make operational again, with energy prices remaining high and the US midterm elections a few months away. View image in fullscreen Vessels in the strait of Hormuz on Friday, as seen from Musandam, Oman. Photograph: Reuters The strait was in effect closed by Iran during the war and its status is still being worked out by Iran, Oman and other regional mediators, who are trying to create a postwar framework to govern the waterway. A multinational maritime body supervised by the US navy said on Saturday it would expand a route near Oman in thestrait of Hormuz to increase inbound and outbound traffic. This would threaten a main source of leverage for Tehran, which has used its control over the strait and surrounding shipping as a card in negotiations with the US. The International Maritime Organisation stopped its efforts to evacuate stranded ships from the strait on Friday, and said it would not resume until there were guarantees that ships would not be attacked. The organ