{"id":509747,"date":"2026-02-28T13:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T13:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/509747\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T13:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T13:23:07","slug":"departure-flights-for-military-families-in-bahrain-paused-following-attacks-on-us-naval-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/509747\/","title":{"rendered":"Departure flights for military families in Bahrain paused following attacks on US naval base"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"Smoke<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tSmoke rose over Manama, Bahrain, on Feb. 28, 2026. The headquarters of the US Navy\u2019s 5th Fleet in Bahrain was targeted in a missile attack. (Shannon Renfroe\/Stars and Stripes)
\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Update, 2 p.m. Saturday, Manama time: Departure flights are on hold pending further notice, U.S. officials said. Navy officials are directing personnel to continue to shelter.<\/p>\n

The Department of Defense has authorized the departure of military dependents in Bahrain after the U.S. and Israel began an attack on Iran Saturday morning. <\/a><\/p>\n

The authorized departures, which are not mandatory, come as President Donald Trump declared that the U.S. has launched a major combat operation in Iran. For weeks, the U.S. has been amassing naval and air power in the region as bilateral negotiations over Iran\u2019s nuclear program languished. <\/p>\n

The alert, seen by Stars and Stripes, went out to military families living on the island just an hour after explosions were reported in Tehran. The emergency message noted that service members and dependents could book flights on a first-come, first-serve basis. <\/p>\n

Explosions could be heard going off in Bahrain on Saturday morning as residents there sheltered in place, but it was not immediately clear where or what they had struck.<\/p>\n

U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bahrain is home to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the 5th Fleet, and is one of the only accompanied billets in the theater.<\/p>\n

In an eight-minute long video<\/a> posted to Truth Social, the president on Saturday described the Iranian regime as a group of \u201cvery hard, terrible people\u201d that have threatened the United States, its troops overseas and its allies around the world. <\/p>\n

The strikes, Trump said, are with the goal of ensuring Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon. <\/p>\n

The president also acknowledged that the strikes could mean the loss of American lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not make this statement lightly: the Iranian regime seeks to kill,\u201d the president said in the video. \u201cThe lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties. That often happens in war. But we\u2019re doing this, not for now, we\u2019re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.\u201d <\/p>\n

U.S. embassies in Qatar, Israel and Bahrain<\/a> also issued emergency notices to Americans on Saturday, advising them to shelter in place with food, water and medicine. <\/p>\n

Trump, in an appeal to the Iraninan people, advised them to stay in their homes amid the strikes, saying that \u201cbombs will be dropping everywhere.\u201d <\/p>\n

He also encouraged them to overthrow the regime once the attacks cease. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations,\u201d he said in his video message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Smoke rose over Manama, Bahrain, on Feb. 28, 2026. The headquarters of the US Navy\u2019s 5th Fleet in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[255637,43,255638,255639,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-509747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-bahrain-base-departures","tag-headlines","tag-israel-us-iran-attacks","tag-middle-east-us-military","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}