An American-operated Patriot air defence battery doubtless fired the interceptor missile concerned in a pre-dawn explosion that injured dozens of civilians and tore by way of properties in U.S.-ally Bahrain 10 days into the struggle on Iran, in response to an evaluation by educational 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 significantly.
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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 likewise 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 harm and accidents sustained weren’t a results of a direct influence to the bottom of both the Patriot interceptor or the Iranian drone,” the spokesperson stated. Neither Bahrain or Washington has offered 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 struggle. 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 harm and casualties, whereas Bahrain’s air defences have been unable to forestall strikes that night time on the close by oil refinery, which declared power 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 the USA was “crushing” Iran’s capacity to shoot or produce drones and missiles.
“We are going to proceed to deal with 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 concerning 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 have been doubtless accountable, Reuters first reported, probably due to outdated focusing on knowledge, two U.S. sources beforehand informed the information company.
Video of the aftermath of the Mahazza blast in Bahrain verified by Reuters exhibits rubble round homes, a thick layer of mud within the streets, an injured man and screaming residents. Each Bahrain and the USA 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 beneath Iranian assault, in response to 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 concerning the incident.
Produced by Raytheon, a part of RTX Corp., the Patriot is the U.S. Military’s main high-to-medium-range aircraft-and-missile interceptor system and types the spine of U.S. and allied air defences.
Raytheon didn’t reply to a request for remark concerning 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 the USA. 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 doubtless 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, have been primarily based on their assessment of open-source visuals and industrial satellite tv for pc imagery.
Reuters confirmed the Middlebury evaluation to 2 target-analysis specialists and one Patriot system missile researcher, who discovered no cause to dispute its conclusion. Certainly one of them, Wes Bryant, a former senior focusing on advisor and coverage analyst on the Pentagon, stated Lair, Duitsman and Lewis’s conclusions have been “fairly plain.”
A small Gulf state, Bahrain performs a important 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 gasoline and has been nearly solely closed by Iran, inflicting unprecedented disruption to world oil provides.
Key to the Middlebury evaluation was a video shot from an residence constructing and shared on social media. The video exhibits 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 faux.” Lair, Duitsman and Lewis geolocated the video to a neighbourhood in Riffa, Bahrain’s second-largest metropolis.
Reuters confirmed the geolocation. The earliest submit of the video Reuters may discover on-line was at round 2 a.m. native time on March 9.
“The Riffa website’s location and orientation are according to 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 harm to residences in Block 602 of the Mahazza neighbourhood.
The researchers first geolocated the visuals utilizing landmarks that appeared to match industrial satellite tv for pc imagery of the world and visual road 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 industrial 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, observe and intercept plane and missiles. Utilizing industrial satellite tv for pc imagery, the researchers decided that 5 launchers have been seen on the Riffa website two days earlier than the March 9 incident. The battery has been there since not less than 2009, in response to satellite tv for pc imagery.
The Bahraini Defence Power didn’t begin working its personal Patriot programs till 2024, in response to 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. Primarily based on these parts, the researchers concluded that the battery is probably going operated by the USA, which makes use of Patriots to defend its naval websites in Bahrain.
The researchers have been unable to say with confidence what prompted the Patriot to blow up. However they added that primarily based on the obtainable proof, together with the sample and unfold of injury on the bottom, it appeared to have detonated mid-flight.
They concluded that it was doable 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 properties of allied civilians in a residential space,” the evaluation stated. This situation matches what Bahrain’s authorities spokesperson stated occurred: that the Patriot intercepted an Iranian drone and each detonated within the air.
Nonetheless, the evaluation stated, the route of the harm and the shortage of obtainable proof of a drone over the neighborhood urged one other situation, 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 doubtless the missile made contact with a drone.
Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the presence or not of an Iranian drone through the incident. The evaluation stated that movies taken after the assault and pictures launched by Bahraini authorities present that the blast harm 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 principle blast space, with inside images 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 properties. 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 mild travels sooner than sound. Primarily based on how lengthy the sound would take to succeed in the one that shot the video, the explosion needed to be greater than 4 miles away.
The broken properties have been about 7.4 km (4.6 miles) away, which inserts with the timing. When all of the harm 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 have 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 business 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 submit on March 9, U.S. Central Command denounced Iranian and Russian information experiences 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 have 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 worry of reprisals. Human Rights Watch has documented arrests of individuals in Bahrain through the struggle 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 doubtless belonged to a primary interceptor fired moments earlier.
Patriots are sometimes fired in pairs to extend the possibilities that one hits the goal. Neither the researchers or Reuters may 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 could possibly be indicators of a doable drawback, the researchers stated. However they might not rule out the likelihood that it was shot in that route on function. Bahrain’s spokesperson stated any suggestion of malfunction or misfiring of the Patriots in Bahrain “was factually incorrect.”