An American-operated Patriot air defence battery probably fired the interceptor missile concerned in a pre-dawn explosion that injured dozens of civilians and tore via houses in U.S.-ally Bahrain 10 days into the battle on Iran, based on an evaluation by tutorial researchers examined by Reuters.
Each Bahrain and Washington have blamed an Iranian drone assault for the March 9 blast, which the Gulf kingdom stated injured 32 individuals together with youngsters, some severely.
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Commenting on the day of the assault, U.S. Central Command stated on X that an Iranian drone struck a residential neighbourhood in Bahrain. In response to questions from Reuters, Bahrain on Saturday (March 21, 2026) acknowledged for the primary time {that a} Patriot missile was concerned within the explosion over the Mahazza neighbourhood on Sitra island, offshore from the capital Manama and in addition dwelling to an oil refinery.
In an announcement, a Bahraini authorities spokesperson stated the missile efficiently intercepted an Iranian drone mid-air, saving lives.
“The injury and accidents sustained weren’t a results of a direct impression to the bottom of both the Patriot interceptor or the Iranian drone,” the spokesperson stated. Neither Bahrain or Washington has supplied proof that an Iranian drone was concerned within the Mahazza incident.
Using pricey, superior weaponry to defend in opposition to assaults by far cheaper drones has been a defining characteristic of the battle. The incident factors to the dangers and limitations of this technique: The blast from the highly effective Patriot, whether or not or not it intercepted a drone, contributed to widespread injury and casualties, whereas Bahrain’s air defences had been unable to stop strikes that night time on the close by oil refinery, which declared pressure majeure hours later.
When requested for remark, the Pentagon referred Reuters to Central Command, which didn’t instantly reply to questions.
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In response to questions despatched to the White Home, a senior U.S. official stated america was “crushing” Iran’s capability to shoot or produce drones and missiles.
“We are going to proceed to handle these threats to our nation and our allies,” the official stated, including that the U.S. army “by no means targets civilians.”
The official didn’t reply particular questions in regards to the Patriot assault. On February 28, the primary day of U.S. strikes on Iran, an Iranian women faculty took a direct hit. Investigators on the U.S. Defence Division imagine U.S. forces had been probably accountable, Reuters first reported, presumably due to outdated focusing on information, two U.S. sources beforehand informed the information company.
Video of the aftermath of the Mahazza blast in Bahrain verified by Reuters reveals rubble round homes, a thick layer of mud within the streets, an injured man and screaming residents. Each Bahrain and america function U.S. Patriot air defence batteries within the kingdom, a detailed U.S. ally situated on the Persian Gulf that hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet together with the regional U.S. naval command.
On the night time of the explosion in Mahazza, the refinery on Sitra got here underneath Iranian assault, based on Bahraini nationwide oil firm Bapco. Movies present smoke rising from the power on the morning of March 9. Reuters couldn’t set up whether or not the reason for the explosion throughout an evening of Iranian assaults on Sitra would have been instantly obvious to U.S. and Bahraini forces.
Bahrain in its assertion didn’t say why it had not talked about the involvement of a Patriot on the time. Iran’s mission to the United Nations didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark in regards to the incident.
Produced by Raytheon, a part of RTX Corp., the Patriot is the U.S. Military’s major high-to-medium-range aircraft-and-missile interceptor system and kinds the spine of U.S. and allied air defences.
Raytheon didn’t reply to a request for remark in regards to the incident. Bahrain’s authorities declined to say whether or not the missile that detonated on March 9, was fired by its personal forces or by america. However analysis associates Sam Lair and Michael Duitsman and Professor Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of Worldwide Research at Monterey concluded with moderate-to-high confidence that the suspect missile was probably launched from a U.S. Patriot battery situated about 7 km (4 miles) to the southwest of the Mahazza neighbourhood.
The conclusions of the three American munitions and open-source intelligence researchers, reported right here for the primary time, had been primarily based on their assessment of open-source visuals and business satellite tv for pc imagery.
Reuters confirmed the Middlebury evaluation to 2 target-analysis consultants and one Patriot system missile researcher, who discovered no motive to dispute its conclusion. One in every of them, Wes Bryant, a former senior focusing on advisor and coverage analyst on the Pentagon, stated Lair, Duitsman and Lewis’s conclusions had been “fairly simple.”
A small Gulf state, Bahrain performs a essential position within the safety of the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint that carries a couple of fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied pure fuel and has been nearly fully closed by Iran, inflicting unprecedented disruption to world oil provides.
Key to the Middlebury evaluation was a video shot from an condominium constructing and shared on social media. The video reveals the suspect Patriot roaring throughout the night time sky at low altitude on a northeastern trajectory. It then angled downward and out of sight. A flash of sunshine within the distance appeared to mark its detonation 1.3 seconds later. Hany Farid, a professor on the College of California at Berkeley specializing in digital forensics, reviewed the video for Reuters to find out if it was generated by synthetic intelligence. He discovered “no apparent proof that the video is pretend.” Lair, Duitsman and Lewis geolocated the video to a neighbourhood in Riffa, Bahrain’s second-largest metropolis.
Reuters confirmed the geolocation. The earliest put up of the video Reuters might discover on-line was at round 2 a.m. native time on March 9.
“The Riffa website’s location and orientation are per the trajectory” of that of the suspect Patriot, the evaluation stated. A number of movies posted to social media the morning of March 9 present injury to residences in Block 602 of the Mahazza neighbourhood.
The researchers first geolocated the visuals utilizing landmarks that appeared to match business satellite tv for pc imagery of the realm and visual avenue addresses. Reuters independently verified the geolocation. The researchers then traced the trajectory of the suspect missile from Block 602 straight again to what they assessed — primarily based on business satellite tv for pc imagery — was the U.S. Patriot battery primarily based much less than half a mile from the place the video of the missile in flight was recorded in Riffa.
A battery consists of a radar unit, a command hub and as much as eight launchers which can be built-in to detect, monitor and intercept plane and missiles. Utilizing business satellite tv for pc imagery, the researchers decided that 5 launchers had been seen on the Riffa website two days earlier than the March 9 incident. The battery has been there since no less than 2009, based on satellite tv for pc imagery.
The Bahraini Defence Pressure didn’t begin working its personal Patriot techniques till 2024, based on a Lockheed Martin press launch. The Riffa website has options which can be each distinctive to U.S. Patriot batteries within the area and totally different from these of recognized Bahrain-operated batteries, the researchers stated, together with protecting partitions, unpaved roads and an absence of everlasting buildings. Based mostly on these parts, the researchers concluded that the battery is probably going operated by america, which makes use of Patriots to defend its naval websites in Bahrain.
The researchers had been unable to say with confidence what induced the Patriot to blow up. However they added that primarily based on the out there proof, together with the sample and unfold of injury on the bottom, it appeared to have detonated mid-flight.
They concluded that it was attainable the Patriot was aimed toward a low-flying drone and that the mixed explosion of the missile and drone ignited the blast, the evaluation stated.
“If this was the case, this was an irresponsible intercept try because it endangered the lives and the houses of allied civilians in a residential space,” the evaluation stated. This state of affairs matches what Bahrain’s authorities spokesperson stated occurred: that the Patriot intercepted an Iranian drone and each detonated within the air.
Nevertheless, the evaluation stated, the path of the injury and the shortage of accessible proof of a drone over the neighborhood instructed one other state of affairs, that “the explosion was the results of the detonation of the warhead and unexpended propellant of a Patriot interceptor.”
Regardless of the declare by Bahrain, the researchers stated it was much less probably the missile made contact with a drone.
Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the presence or not of an Iranian drone throughout the incident. The evaluation stated that movies taken after the assault and images launched by Bahraini authorities present that the blast injury was concentrated alongside 4 streets of Mahazza.
A Bahrain tv information broadcast on March 9 and a authorities press launch confirmed an extensively broken dwelling about 120m from the centre of the primary blast space, with inside pictures displaying holes in a wall created by shrapnel, the evaluation stated.
Robert Maher, an audio specialist who reviewed the video on the request of Reuters, stated his evaluation helps the approximate location of the explosion over the broken houses. Within the video, a flash is seen about eight seconds in, however an explosion is rarely heard earlier than the clip ends 19 seconds later. That’s as a result of gentle travels sooner than sound. Based mostly on how lengthy the sound would take to succeed in the one who shot the video, the explosion needed to be greater than 4 miles away.
The broken houses had been about 7.4 km (4.6 miles) away, which inserts with the timing. When all of the injury is taken into account collectively, the Middlebury evaluation famous, it matches what one would anticipate if a Patriot missile exploded within the air over a highway intersection within the neighbourhood.
Items of the missile then flew about 120 meters farther and hit one other home, the evaluation stated. Maher stated that within the audio from the video he heard no drones or different missiles, though their sounds would have been faint or inaudible in the event that they had been greater than 4 miles away from the place the video was taken.
“I don’t see something that’s inconsistent with my observations from the audio,” Maher stated after reviewing the Middlebury evaluation.
Defence and trade officers say Patriot misfires are uncommon, however they do occur, together with an errant missile in 2007 that hit a farm in Qatar. In an X put up on March 9, U.S. Central Command denounced Iranian and Russian information stories that stated the incident in Mahazza was the results of a failed Patriot, calling it a “LIE.”
It stated an Iranian drone struck a residential neighbourhood. Reuters and the Middlebury researchers had been unable to acquire or assessment any visible proof of missile or drone fragments.
Reuters tried to contact witnesses in Bahrain, however a number of individuals declined to talk, citing concern of reprisals. Human Rights Watch has documented arrests of individuals in Bahrain throughout the battle for posting movies on social media of assaults.
Within the video of the suspect missile in flight, the Patriot seems to move a a lot steeper smoke path that the researchers stated probably belonged to a primary interceptor fired moments earlier.
Patriots are sometimes fired in pairs to extend the probabilities that one hits the goal. Neither the researchers or Reuters might set up what occurred to the primary missile. The low trajectory of the second missile and its deviation from the route of the sooner launch might be indicators of a attainable downside, the researchers stated. However they may not rule out the likelihood that it was shot in that path on objective. Bahrain’s spokesperson stated any suggestion of malfunction or misfiring of the Patriots in Bahrain “was factually incorrect.”
