MANAMA (Reuters) - A suspicious car triggered a security alert at the U.S. Navy‘s Gulf headquarters in Bahrain but an investigation showed it was a false alarm, a military official at the base said on Sunday. The official would not say whether the base, the headquarters of the U.S. Navy‘s Fifth Fleet, had been evacuated in response to the security alert on Thursday. Routine checks on cars entering and leaving the base indicated that „something was amiss“ with one of the vehicles, prompting the Navy to take „appropriate actions“, he told Reuters. He would not say what action was taken. The checks included undercarriage and trunk inspections and the use of sniffer dogs, the official said. After thoroughly examining the suspect vehicle, the Navy „found nothing that was of concern“, he said. The U.S. Navy in the Gulf has recently stepped up security in line with American efforts worldwide after U.S. ships unleashed cruise missiles on „terrorist-related“ targets in Sudan and Afghanistan earlier this month. The Fifth Fleet‘s region of command also includes the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, from where U.S. ships fired 75 Tomahawk cruise missiles on Thursday at a factory near the Sudanese capital Khartoum and training camps in Afghanistan. There are more than 800 naval and other personnel at the Fifth Fleet‘s headquarters in Bahrain, while there are about 14 ships in the Gulf with some 15,000 sailors and marines on board.