Iran has struck several targets across the Gulf in retaliation against a joint US-Israeli bombing campaign, plunging the Middle East into chaos.
Tehran said it would target US bases in the Middle East after Washington and Israel launched strikes towards Iran on Saturday. US President Donald Trump accused Tehran of waging an “unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder targeting the United States”.
Blasts have since been reported in Jerusalem, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha in Qatar, and Manama in Bahrain on the third day of a conflict that has plunged the region into chaos, impacting key regional aviation and trade hubs.
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Both the UK and the US have long had military bases in numerous countries across the Middle East.
An Iranian drone struck a US navy base in Bahrain at around 7:30pm GMT (10:30pm local time) on Sunday, causing a major fire. It struck near an adjoining UK naval facility, but there were no casualties as the area had previously been evacuated.
Kuwaiti air defences mistakenly shot down three US F15 fighter jets flying in Iran-related operations, the US military said on Monday. All six aircrew ejected safely, have been safely recovered, and are in stable condition, it said.
Meanwhile, the Cypriot government said on Monday that two unmanned drones heading towards the UK’s Akrotiri air base in Cyprus had been intercepted.
Iran has used ballistic missiles and drones to launch large-scale attacks on US allies and assets across the Gulf, which have a self-imposed range of 2,000 km (1,240 miles). It has the largest stockpile of ballistic missiles in the Middle East, according to the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Even Iran’s short-range missiles can reach 435 miles, which would put several US military bases within reach, according to estimates by the CSIS Missile Defense Project in The New York Times.
These include bases and military sites in Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Oman and the UAE – all of which are at risk of Iranian retaliation with short-range weapons.
In the wider region, the US operates a broad network of sites across at least 19 locations, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Eight are permanent, including in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Tens of thousands of US troops are stationed across the Middle East, in Arab Gulf countries just across the Persian Gulf from Iran – and much closer than Israel.
Those bases boast the same kinds of sophisticated air defences as Israel, but would have much less warning time before waves of missiles or swarms of armed drones reached them. And even Israel, which is several hundred kilometres further away, has been unable to stop all of the incoming fire.
