US base in Bahrain ‘blown out’ as Iran resumes underground missile work
Iranian strikes have left the US Navy’s Bahrain base unusable “anytime soon,” even as Tehran quietly restarts limited underground ballistic missile production from stockpiled parts. The twin developments expose US vulnerabilities in the Gulf while showing that Iran retains enough missile capacity to keep regional adversaries in range.
The United States is grappling with a damaged footprint at the heart of its Gulf naval presence at the same time Iran is rebuilding parts of the missile arsenal used to threaten that presence.
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao confirmed that Iran “blew the hell out of” Naval Support Activity Bahrain in strikes that began on 28 February, describing damage to headquarters buildings, barracks and infrastructure estimated at more than $400 million. He said the Fifth Fleet’s shore base is unusable “anytime soon,” forcing operations to be run from ships and from the remote Indian Ocean base at Diego Garcia. The comments, reported by US media, are the clearest public acknowledgment yet of the severity of the attack.
For a US military that has long relied on Bahrain as its central hub for patrolling the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the northern Arabian Sea, the loss of that base’s full functionality is more than a logistical inconvenience. It complicates maintenance, planning and coordination with regional partners and exposes how vulnerable fixed infrastructure can be to precision strikes, even from a country suffering under sanctions and a naval blockade.
At the same time, Iran is reported to have resumed limited ballistic missile production underground. According to US and Middle Eastern officials cited by the Wall Street Journal, Tehran is assembling missiles from stockpiled components after US‑Israeli strikes damaged key factories and as a US‑led naval blockade restricts imports of fuel and some materials. Output is said to be far below pre‑war levels, but the officials stress that Iran still holds a usable arsenal while building new underground facilities designed to better survive future attacks.
For Gulf governments, Israel, and US planners, this means that the missile threat hasn’t disappeared; it has changed shape. Instead of large, visible factories, Iranian engineers are dispersing production into hardened sites that are harder to detect and destroy. That, in turn, complicates any strategy built on pre‑emptive strikes or on the assumption that sanctions and raids alone can strip Tehran of its ability to hit bases, oil infrastructure and cities across the region.
The interplay between a damaged US base and a recovering Iranian missile program also carries deterrence implications. Washington is enforcing a naval blockade that has already redirected nearly a hundred commercial vessels away from Iranian ports, a move meant to squeeze Tehran’s economy and military logistics. Iran, in response, is combining kinetic strikes – like the attack on NSA Bahrain and the reported destruction of a US Saildrone near the Strait of Hormuz – with a long‑term effort to harden and replenish its missile stockpile.
For ordinary Bahrainis and expatriate workers who live in a country effectively hosting a front‑line target, the costs are tangible even if they aren’t often visible in Western reporting. A base that once symbolized American security guarantees is now partly a ruin, and the ships offshore have become the main platform for operations. On the Iranian side, civilians feel the blockade in fuel shortages and economic strain as resources are diverted into bunkered missile sites.
The episode is a reminder that military infrastructure is both an asset and a liability: the more central a base becomes to power projection, the more tempting it is as a target. Signals to watch next include how quickly the US decides whether to rebuild or reconfigure its presence in Bahrain, what intelligence surfaces about new Iranian underground complexes, and whether missile testing patterns change as production ramps back up from underground lines.
Sources
- OSINT