Iran Says It Destroyed US Early-Warning Radar in Bahrain After US Strike in Sirik

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it targeted and destroyed a US early-warning radar in Bahrain, its first direct attack on US military installations in months. The Guard said the strike was retaliation for a US airstrike on a communications tower in Sirik, which overlooks the Strait of Hormuz. In a statement, it called the action a serious warning to the United States to end what it described as aerial mischief and oil smuggling in the strait, and said its aerospace force was on full alert to respond without constraint to any repeated violations. The Guard also said a gas tanker hit a mine and exploded in the strait, but the UK Maritime Trade Operations center had not reported such an incident. In Washington, President Donald Trump said in interviews over the past 24 hours that he would attack Iran only if necessary, and claimed Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia had urged him to hold back from planned large-scale strikes. He also said he had asked Vice President JD Vance to drop his interest in negotiating with Iran and focus on fraud in Democrat-run cities and states.

Left-leaning coverage, represented by The Guardian, leads with the Iranian claim but spends much of its opening on US politics and diplomacy. It quotes the Guard's warning, then reports Trump's interviews, his instruction to Vance, Iran's rejection of Vance's request for a personal meeting with its negotiators, and Vance's link between the war and Republican midterm losses. Alternative outlets focus more narrowly on the military exchange. Al Jazeera's headline stresses Iran threatening an unlimited response and carries a report from Tehran by Resul Serdar Atas, while NewsNation keeps to the radar claim and adds the unconfirmed tanker explosion, noting that UKMTO had not reported it. Both sides report the Guard's account of the radar strike and the Sirik trigger, and neither independently confirms the damage. Right-leaning outlets had not reported this story at the time of writing, while left-leaning and alternative outlets had.