Iran launched a drone attack against Bahrain on Sunday for the second time in days, as peace talks with the United States have faltered.
The Bahraini Defense Ministry said the Gulf Arab country’s armed forces had intercepted several “Iranian aerial threats” on Sunday before they struck their targets. Bahrain’s Interior Ministry also issued two alerts to residents on Sunday morning advising them to seek shelter.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed that Iranian forces had targeted a radar system at a Bahraini air base.
Bahrain separately hosts a major U.S. naval base. The American military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sunday’s attack came two days after the U.S. military said it had shot down two drones fired by Iran toward Bahrain, without causing any injuries or damage.
The Revolutionary Guards said that Friday’s attack was retaliation for a previous American strike on a telecommunications tower in Iran.
The attacks were the first to target Bahrain in about two months. After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February, Iran launched thousands of retaliatory missile and drone attacks at Gulf Arab countries that host American military installations. But those attacks had largely petered out as the two sides entered a stalemate.
With the conflict deadlocked and few signs of progress toward a durable peace agreement between the United States and Iran, tit-for-tat strikes between the two have resumed.
American and Israeli military officials also have drawn up plans for renewed strikes that would likely target energy infrastructure and other sites vital to the Iranian economy, according to U.S. officials and other people briefed on the deliberations.
American military assets have been streaming into the Middle East in recent weeks. The USS Theodore Roosevelt will join two other aircraft carriers in the Middle East within the next day, a U.S. military official, who requested anonymity to discuss operational matters, said on Sunday.
A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Esmaeil Baghaei, said on Sunday that Iran would continue to respond to any military aggression by the United States or others.
Asked in a news conference in Tehran whether the Iranian attack in Bahrain signified a change to the country’s approach, and whether Iran was still awaiting an official American response in the negotiations, Mr. Baghaei said that Iran was “not waiting for anyone” and was focused on safeguarding its security.
Mr. Trump has zigzagged over whether or not he might order a return to full-blown war. The initial campaign failed to compel Iran to abandon its nuclear program but did ensnarl global energy markets, which contributed to a resounding defeat for the Republican Party in the recent midterm elections.
It is far from clear whether a new U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran could force Tehran to make new concessions. The country has said it has rebuilt its military capabilities during the truce, and U.S. and Israeli officials will also have to consider whether they are willing or able to contend with Iranian missile and drone attacks across the Middle East, given their depleted stores of aerial interceptors.
Mediators from Qatar and Pakistan have shuttled to Tehran in recent weeks in an effort to avert a return to all-out war. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, will travel to Pakistan and Oman in the coming days, Mr. Baghaei said on Sunday.
Vice President JD Vance had backed efforts by the mediators to find a diplomatic way to end the conflict, as well as publicly blaming the war for Republican losses in the midterm elections.
Mr. Trump has now pulled Mr. Vance from the negotiations, writing on social media on Thursday that the United States does not need a deal with Iran.
“Those days,” he said, “have long since passed.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.