Iranian strikes conducted over the weekend and on Monday damaged structures that are part of or near communication and radar systems on at least seven U.S. military sites across the Middle East, according to a New York Times analysis of satellite imagery and verified videos.
Visuals show damage on or close to mechanisms used to track incoming ballistic missiles, satellite dishes and radomes, which are weatherproof covers that protect sensitive equipment used by forces to communicate over long distances.
U.S. military communication infrastructure is highly classified, making it difficult to determine which exact systems may have been affected. But the targeted locations appear to indicate Iran was aiming to disrupt the U.S. military’s ability to communicate and coordinate. Iran has attacked the U.S. military’s communication capacity as recently as last June, when it struck a Qatari base it hit again over the weekend.
Strikes potentially affecting these systems also occurred on military facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
A press officer for United States Central Command declined to comment on the strikes.
Bahrain
Video verified by The Times showed that an Iranian one-way attack drone struck a radome on Saturday in the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, Bahrain. The base is the United States’ primary hub for coordinating naval operations in the Middle East.
Satellite imagery taken of the headquarters the following day showed that at least one additional radome was destroyed.
Destroyed satellite communication terminals
The two demolished structures were AN/GSC-52B SATCOM terminals, which play a key role in facilitating high-capacity and near real-time communication for the U.S. military.
Qatar
Satellite imagery of Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar taken on Sunday afternoon showed that a tent surrounded by satellite dishes had been destroyed and some of the dishes most likely damaged.
March 1Al Udeid is the U.S. military’s largest base in the Middle East, accommodating thousands of troops across an area nearly six miles wide, and serves as the regional headquarters for the United States Central Command. Iran hit a radome the American military used for communications with a ballistic missile at the same base during the 12-day Iran-Israel war last June.
Kuwait
Satellite imagery of Camp Arifjan in Kuwait shows that by Sunday morning at least three radomes had been damaged or destroyed.
Feb. 23
Fifty miles northeast, at the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, at least six buildings or structures adjacent to satellite communications infrastructure were damaged or destroyed, according to imagery captured on Sunday.
Damaged structures
The same area of the base was hit again, with two additional buildings near the satellite equipment heavily damaged, according to satellite imagery from Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia
On Saturday night, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps announced that the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia had been targeted with missiles and drones. The following morning, satellite imagery captured a mile-long smoke plume rising from a building connected to the site.
Another satellite image captured on Tuesday showed the structure was largely destroyed.
Damaged structure
The building that was hit is close to a radome and sits within a fenced-off area roughly six miles east of the main base, indicating Iranians may have been specifically targeting a communications section of the site.
United Arab Emirates
Low-resolution satellite imagery captured of a military installation just outside Al Ruwais in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday shows several structures were damaged.
Radar system
A radar system known as AN/TPY-2, which is used to detect and track ballistic missiles and is crucial to coordinating missile interception, appears to have been stationed next to one of the buildings that was hit since June of last year. It is unclear from the imagery if the radar system itself was damaged.
The target of a strike over 100 miles east at Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates was less clear. Satellite imagery captured on Sunday shows that tightly clustered buildings and tents within a compound about the size of a football field were heavily damaged. Imagery from previous years shows satellite dishes and antennas at the site, but it’s unclear if they were still there when the strikes occurred over the weekend.
March 1The base was struck again in the same general area, according to satellite imagery captured on Monday.
The Times previously reported that additional American military facilities in Dubai, Iraq and Kuwait were damaged during the weekend strikes, and newly captured satellite imagery shows damage at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. But the structures damaged at these locations don’t appear to be near communications or radar systems.
Bora Erden and Christiaan Triebert contributed reporting. Lily Boyce contributed graphics production.
