Iran attacked US Navy base in Bahrain before families were evacuated — CBS News
On the first day of the war, Iran attacked the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, while the evacuation of all military families had not yet been completed. Some families had to wait about a week or longer to leave for a safe location, CBS News reports.
According to three people who were in Bahrain at the time, the scale and duration of Iran’s missile and drone attacks came as a surprise to the US government. The US military expected some retaliatory strikes and evacuated the headquarters buildings at the base, but military families were still living nearby.
The television network’s sources said they saw trails from missiles and drones in the sky and heard explosions. CBS News does not name them because of fears of possible consequences following their conversations with journalists. No service members were killed during the attacks. At the same time, photos circulating on social media, which the network’s sources described as authentic, indicate significant damage to the base, including an explosion near an important radar system on the first day of the war.
Disruption of fleet supplies
The Pentagon has not released a public assessment of the cost of damage to the bases, as officials still do not know which facilities will be rebuilt. Acting US Navy Secretary Hung Cao said in an interview with The Epoch Times that the Iranian strikes caused significant destruction in Bahrain.
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The damage also affected the supply of ships at sea. The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln previously faced food shortages after supply routes were rerouted around Bahrain. Some supplies were delivered via Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. According to a Pentagon inspector general’s report, this logistics cycle takes 14 to 18 days, while supplies from Bahrain took five to seven days.
Evacuation and families’ expenses
Since the beginning of the war, the US Navy has helped evacuate approximately 1,450 service members and their family members from Bahrain. Some evacuees maintain two households — in Bahrain and the United States. The Pentagon provides payments to compensate for housing expenses in both locations, but families told CBS News that processing applications can take from several weeks to several months.
Many were evacuated to Norfolk, Virginia, or Tampa, Florida. According to a Navy representative, families must move by the end of November from a safe temporary location to their designated place of residence in order to continue receiving housing, relocation and separation allowances.
