An Iranian missile attack on Thursday sparked a fire at a state-owned oil refinery in Bahrain, which was later extinguished, the Gulf country’s communications department said.
The facility, managed by Bahrain’s national oil company Bapco, is located on Sitra Island along Bahrain’s east coast, south of the capital Manama.
“The fire at the Bapco Energies refinery unit broke out following an Iranian missile strike. The fire has been fully extinguished,” Bahrain’s National Communications Center, the government’s media arm, said in a statement.
“No injuries have been reported and refinery operations are continuing. Damage is currently being assessed,” the center added.
Tehran intensified hostilities throughout the Gulf in retaliation for American and Israeli operations that killed its top leader last weekend. These strikes targeted facilities in the United States as well as civilian assets, including vital hydrocarbon infrastructure in energy-rich territories.
Regarding the same incident, Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior previously noted that a nearby facility had been hit AFP plumes of smoke reported coming from the site.
Emergency sirens wailed across Bahrain on Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile, the country’s defense ministry said its military had intercepted 75 Iranian ballistic missiles and 124 unmanned aerial vehicles since the war broke out on Saturday.
Azerbaijan accuses Iran carries out drone strikes
The conflict escalated every day and now involves 14 more countries in the Middle East and surrounding regions.
On Thursday, Azerbaijan accused Iran of carrying out the drone strikes, a claim Tehran denied. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev called the incident an “unfounded act of terror and aggression” after a drone crashed near the airport of Nakhchivan, a territory bordering Iran, on Thursday.
The day before, the US said it had sunk the Iranians warship in waters near Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, Israel sent a mass evacuation for all southern parts of Beirut as fighting escalated with the Iranian-linked Lebanese Hezbollah forces. UN monitors recorded ground clashes in southern Lebanon as more Israeli battalions crossed the border. Simultaneously, the US and Israel attacked Iran with nationwide airstrikes that targeted military assets, leadership structures, and nuclear facilities. Israeli and US officials have also indicated that toppling the government was the primary objective – and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed when they launched the offensive on Saturday. However, specific objectives and plans changed frequently, and the fight increasingly felt like an open-ended encounter.
US President Donald Trump said it Axios on Thursday that he intends to be involved in the selection of Iran’s next supreme leader, saying that Mojtaba Khamenei, the leading candidate to replace his father, would be an “unacceptable” participant. The White House said the military campaign would continue until “all objectives” related to regional security and the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program were fully achieved.
