Bahrain, Qatar, and the Gulf’s War Zone
The Gulf monarchies are not watching this war from the balcony. Bahrain lost a U.S. naval logistics hub.
Qatar shot down Iranian bombers. Both have become physical terrain in a conflict Washington and Tehran describe as if it happens somewhere else.
The New York Times reports that Iran’s early-war strikes heavily damaged the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain facility, including the logistics hub that supported forces across the region.
The Navy shifted much of that work to Diego Garcia, a British-controlled island in the Indian Ocean about 2,200 miles from the carrier groups operating in the Gulf of Oman.
The longer supply line has contributed to the USS Abraham Lincoln’s strained deployment, alongside the exhaustion of its roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines.
At the other end of the Gulf, Qatar became a combatant by geography.
On March 2, two Iranian Su-24 bombers were flying low toward Al Udeid Air Base, the main U.S. military hub in Qatar, and the Ras Laffan liquefied-natural-gas complex.
CNN sources said the aircraft were roughly two minutes from their targets, flying at about 80 feet and carrying bombs and guided munitions. Qatar radioed warnings and received no response.
Its air force classified the aircraft as hostile and sent F-15QAs into the country’s first reported air-to-air combat. The Qatari fighters shot down both Iranian bombers over Qatari waters.
For six months, Iran said it was still trying to determine what had happened to three crew members. On August 15, it made its first direct accusation against Qatar.
Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagherzadeh, who heads Iran’s armed-forces committee for missing personnel, wrote to the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
In the letter, published by the IRGC-affiliated Fars agency, he alleged that Qatar captured three pilots alive and has held them without access to relatives or Iranian officials.
He named them as Javad Salehi, Abdolmajid Dashtian and Omran Behraveshian. The claim has not been independently verified. Qatar had previously said it had no information on their fate.
Bagherzadeh cited the Third Geneva Convention, including Articles 70 and 78, which require a detaining power to permit prisoners of war to notify families of their capture and to send requests or complaints.
But that legal machinery has a prior obstacle: Qatar does not acknowledge holding the men.
Tehran says they are prisoners of war. Doha says it has no information. The dispute begins before any Red Cross form can be filled out.
Bahrain paid with a damaged base. Qatar paid with the first air-to-air kill in its history and, if Iran’s allegation is true, three prisoners who have vanished into a legal void.
#Iran #Qatar #Bahrain #DiegoGarcia #USNavy #AbrahamLincoln #ICRC #war
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The Gulf monarchies are not watching this war from the balcony. Bahrain lost a U.S. naval logistics hub.
Qatar shot down Iranian bombers. Both have become physical terrain in a conflict Washington and Tehran describe as if it happens somewhere else.
The New York Times reports that Iran’s early-war strikes heavily damaged the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain facility, including the logistics hub that supported forces across the region.
The Navy shifted much of that work to Diego Garcia, a British-controlled island in the Indian Ocean about 2,200 miles from the carrier groups operating in the Gulf of Oman.
The longer supply line has contributed to the USS Abraham Lincoln’s strained deployment, alongside the exhaustion of its roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines.
At the other end of the Gulf, Qatar became a combatant by geography.
On March 2, two Iranian Su-24 bombers were flying low toward Al Udeid Air Base, the main U.S. military hub in Qatar, and the Ras Laffan liquefied-natural-gas complex.
CNN sources said the aircraft were roughly two minutes from their targets, flying at about 80 feet and carrying bombs and guided munitions. Qatar radioed warnings and received no response.
Its air force classified the aircraft as hostile and sent F-15QAs into the country’s first reported air-to-air combat. The Qatari fighters shot down both Iranian bombers over Qatari waters.
For six months, Iran said it was still trying to determine what had happened to three crew members. On August 15, it made its first direct accusation against Qatar.
Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagherzadeh, who heads Iran’s armed-forces committee for missing personnel, wrote to the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
In the letter, published by the IRGC-affiliated Fars agency, he alleged that Qatar captured three pilots alive and has held them without access to relatives or Iranian officials.
He named them as Javad Salehi, Abdolmajid Dashtian and Omran Behraveshian. The claim has not been independently verified. Qatar had previously said it had no information on their fate.
Bagherzadeh cited the Third Geneva Convention, including Articles 70 and 78, which require a detaining power to permit prisoners of war to notify families of their capture and to send requests or complaints.
But that legal machinery has a prior obstacle: Qatar does not acknowledge holding the men.
Tehran says they are prisoners of war. Doha says it has no information. The dispute begins before any Red Cross form can be filled out.
Bahrain paid with a damaged base. Qatar paid with the first air-to-air kill in its history and, if Iran’s allegation is true, three prisoners who have vanished into a legal void.
#Iran #Qatar #Bahrain #DiegoGarcia #USNavy #AbrahamLincoln #ICRC #war
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