Bahrain accused Iran on Thursday of carrying out a sustained campaign of attacks on civilian infrastructure across the Arabian Gulf, warning that the assaults threatened regional security and violated the recent US-brokered agreement.
“This aggression is not directed solely against Bahrain,” Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani told the 15-member UN Security Council. “It threatens the security of the entire region.”
Bahrain has recorded 808 attacks since February 28 – 203 ballistic missiles and 605 drones – that have continued despite a memorandum of understanding signed weeks earlier to reduce hostilities, Mr Al Zayani said.
He rejected Iranian claims that the strikes were aimed at military targets only, saying some had hit a water desalination plant, residential neighbourhoods and other civilian sites.
Bahrain has submitted documentation of every attack to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the council, he added.
He said attacks had also targeted Kuwait International Airport, posing “a grave threat to civil aviation safety”, and cited the drone strike on the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in the UAE that caused a fire in an external electrical generator.
“Taken together, the pattern is unmistakable,” Mr Al Zayani said. “These are not military targets, as Iran claims, but part of a systematic campaign against the critical infrastructure upon which civilian life in our countries depends.”
Iran's ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, countered by accusing Bahrain and other Gulf states of enabling what he called US-Israeli aggression by allowing their territory and airspace to be used against Iran.
“Certain regional countries, including Bahrain, facilitated the aggression by allowing their territory and airspace to be used by the aggressors,” he told the council, arguing that doing so made those nations complicit under UN General Assembly resolutions.
The presence of US forces on their soil, he said, “not only does not bring security to their countries but also makes those countries vulnerable”.
US ambassador Mike Waltz blamed Tehran, accusing it of defying the council by keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed to shipping.
“Iran still hasn't shown the world a basic level of decency and respect,” he said. “Instead, they openly defied this council, their neighbours and basic tenets of diplomacy.”
He said the agreement signed two weeks earlier rested on a simple premise that the strait remain open and that attacks on civilian shipping stop.
“And we are here today because Iran ignored that,” Mr Waltz said. “Iran cannot, and we cannot allow it to, hold the world's economy hostage.”
China’s UN envoy Fu Cong called for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to resume immediately, saying free passage through the waterway was vital to global supply chains and served the interests of the region and the broader international community alike.
Mr Fu said arrangements governing the strait should respect the sovereignty and legitimate rights of coastal states while remaining consistent with international practice.
He also cautioned against escalating geopolitical competition in the region.
“The Middle East, including the Gulf, cannot once again become an arena for the rivalry among big powers or fall victim to geopolitical games,” he said.
