World

U.S. says it shot down two Iranian drones headed for Bahrain, rejecting Tehran's radar-strike claim

Manama, Bahrain • November 13, 2026 • By Press Pass USA

The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Mitscher sails in the Persian Gulf

File photo: U.S. Navy via The War Zone — The destroyer USS Mitscher sails in the Persian Gulf

The U.S. military said Friday it shot down two Iranian attack drones headed toward Bahrain, denying Iran's claim that it had destroyed a U.S. early-warning radar system in the Gulf kingdom.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the region, said the Revolutionary Guard launched two one-way attack drones toward Bahrain and that U.S. forces shot both down. There were no injuries or damage, the command said, and it called Iran's claim that a radar system had been destroyed false.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard had said earlier Friday that its Aerospace Force targeted and destroyed a U.S. early-warning radar installation in Bahrain, in retaliation for what Tehran described as a U.S. strike on a telecommunications tower in the southern Iranian port of Sirik. Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted the Guard's statement, which called the attack "a serious warning" to the United States to cease its strikes.

Neither Iran's claim of striking the radar nor its account of the attack on the tower in Sirik could be independently verified, the Associated Press reported. Bahrain's Ministry of Information did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

It was the first report of Iran targeting a facility in Bahrain since September, and the first attempt to strike a U.S. military site in a Gulf state in more than two months, according to the Associated Press and CNN. Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.

The clash of accounts came during a fragile lull in the U.S.-Iran war that began in February, when the United States and Israel struck Iran and Tehran answered with missile and drone attacks on U.S. bases in neighboring Arab nations, including Bahrain. Since then, Iran has routinely targeted oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway for international oil shipments — and on the same day, the Guard said a liquefied petroleum gas tanker struck a mine and exploded while trying to sail through the strait, a claim that also could not be independently verified.

Sources: Associated Press, "US Military Downs 2 Iranian Attack Drones as Iran Claims a Strike on a US Radar in Bahrain" (Nov. 13, 2026, full text verified); CNN, "Iran targets US military site in Gulf for first time in two months as hopes for a deal fade" (Nov. 13, 2026).