MANAMA — Explosions rocked Bahrain's capital and smoke rose over Abu Dhabi and Doha on Saturday as Iran launched retaliatory strikes against Gulf Arab states hosting American military installations, dramatically widening a conflict that began in the predawn hours when United States and Israeli forces unleashed coordinated attacks on targets across Iran. The escalation represents one of the most consequential military engagements in the Middle East in decades, pulling civilian populations in three strategically vital Gulf states directly into the crossfire of a confrontation that the region's own governments had spent weeks desperately trying to prevent.

Iranian Fire Reaches Three Gulf States With US Bases

Explosions were reported in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar within hours of the initial American-Israeli offensive against Iran. Bahrain's Interior Ministry activated air-raid sirens specifically to warn residents of incoming Iranian strikes directed at US military installations on the island, and Arabic-language media reported smoke rising over the capital Manama following detonations. The full extent of damage and any casualty figures remained unconfirmed at the time of publication and should be treated as unverified until official statements are issued. Bahrain serves as headquarters for the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, one of Washington's most strategically significant forward naval commands in the region and a linchpin of American power projection across the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.

US embassies in Israel, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates each posted urgent alerts ordering staff to shelter in place and recommending that all American citizens in those countries do the same until further notice. The emergency notifications, issued in rapid succession, underscored the breadth and immediacy of the threat environment stretching across the Gulf littoral. Qatar hosts Al Udeid Air Base, the largest American air installation in the Middle East, while the UAE's Al Dhafra Air Base serves as a critical platform for US combat air operations throughout the region. Together, these facilities provide the logistical and operational foundation for much of the strike campaign now under way against Iran.

Trump Describes the Campaign and Calls for Regime Change

The offensive began in the early morning hours of Saturday, February 28, when Israeli and American forces launched what Trump described as a "massive and ongoing operation" targeting Iran's military infrastructure. The president, monitoring the strikes from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, released an eight-minute video on Truth Social confirming the campaign and framing it around national security imperatives. He stated that the United States intended to "destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground," citing what he characterized as Iran's continued efforts to rebuild a nuclear weapons capability following US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities during a twelve-day conflict last summer. Trump also warned that American lives could be lost, describing the mission as "a noble cause" undertaken for future generations rather than the present moment.

The president went further by addressing the Iranian population directly, urging citizens to seize political control once the military campaign concluded. He cast the operation as a historic opportunity for Iranians that no previous American administration had been willing to create. Two sources with knowledge of the planning told American media that the US military was prepared to sustain strikes for several days, suggesting the operation was conceived from the outset as a sustained campaign rather than a single targeted engagement. Israel named its portion of the operation "Roaring Lion," following the earlier "Rising Lion" designation used during the June conflict.

Tehran Launches Missiles Toward Israel and Activates Proxies

Iran moved swiftly to respond on multiple fronts. An outlet affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reported that "dozens" of ballistic missiles had been launched toward Israel, while Iranian state media cited a range of between 30 and 75 missiles in flight. One outlet indicated the missiles were targeting "the whole of Palestine," the phrase used in Iranian official discourse to refer to Israeli territory. The Israeli military confirmed it had detected launches from Iran and stated that its air force was operating to intercept incoming threats. In a notable public caution, the Israeli military acknowledged that its missile defense network was "not hermetic," directing civilians to follow Home Front Command guidance and move to sheltered spaces without delay.

On a second front, Iran-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen announced they would resume missile and drone attacks on both Israeli territory and international shipping lanes, a move that threatened to reopen a conflict axis that had previously imposed enormous costs on global maritime commerce. The Houthi re-entry into active hostilities raised the prospect of a multi-vector Iranian retaliation extending from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, creating simultaneous pressure points that US naval commanders would be required to manage concurrently. Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian was confirmed safe and in good health, according to Iranian state media, while the status of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose office complex in Tehran's Pasteur district was reported to have sustained multiple strikes, remained publicly unaddressed by Iranian authorities at the time of writing.

Nuclear Diplomacy Collapses on the Eve of War

The timing of the offensive carried acute geopolitical significance. Strikes began less than twenty-four hours after Iran and the United States completed the latest round of indirect nuclear negotiations in Geneva, mediated with the assistance of Oman. Iran's Foreign Minister said publicly after those talks that a deal was "within reach, but only if diplomacy is given priority," and described a "historic opportunity" for an agreement addressing mutual concerns. Iranian state media pointedly noted the parallel with June of the previous year, when American forces struck Iranian nuclear facilities while an earlier diplomatic track was still nominally open, effectively closing that window. The recurrence of that pattern will shape how regional and international actors read Washington's intentions for months to come.

Trump had indicated before the strikes that he was unsatisfied with the pace of talks, telling reporters he was "not happy" with progress and accusing Tehran of refusing to state categorically that it would never seek nuclear weapons. Washington's minimum demand was a complete and permanent renunciation of any nuclear weapons program; Iran's position, repeated consistently across multiple administrations, is that its nuclear activity serves civilian purposes exclusively. The gap between those positions had appeared to narrow in Geneva, and several regional diplomats described the decision to strike as abrupt, with at least one Georgetown University scholar quoted in reporting from Al Jazeera arguing the attack appeared designed to derail negotiations rather than enforce them.

US Base Vulnerability and the Shape of a Wider War

The Iranian strikes on Gulf states hosting American installations laid bare a vulnerability that defence analysts had flagged for years as the central strategic risk in any US-Iran escalation scenario. Iran's short-range ballistic missile arsenal was assessed to have survived last year's Israeli-led campaign largely intact, because that operation concentrated primarily on longer-range systems and nuclear infrastructure. Analysts had publicly identified US bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE as Iran's highest-priority retaliation targets, precisely because they serve as critical refueling and logistics hubs for the American aircraft now conducting strikes. Iran had additionally closed its airspace entirely on Saturday morning and ordered schools to switch to remote learning, signaling that the country's leadership was prepared for a sustained exchange rather than a brief confrontation.

Gulf Arab governments, while broadly aligned with Washington on long-term strategic questions concerning Iran, had invested significant diplomatic capital in the weeks before February 28 trying to avert this moment. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE had each said publicly that they would not permit their territory or airspace to be used for strikes against Iran, while an Arab Gulf diplomat described regional leaders as having been in contact with both Tehran and Washington up to the final days before the offensive. The eruption of Iranian missile fire over Bahrain and Abu Dhabi has now placed those sovereign commitments under severe pressure and thrust populations across the Gulf into a conflict their governments publicly sought to prevent. The downstream effects on regional energy markets, commercial aviation, and the physical security of tens of thousands of American service members stationed in these countries remained deeply uncertain as the first full day of the conflict drew on.

Written by Nick Ravenshade for NENC Media Group, original article and analysis.