DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Bahrain said Monday that it broke a plot through Iranian-backed militants earlier this year to launch attacks on diplomats and foreigners in the island country that houses the U. S. Navy Fifth Fleet.
The announcement came hours after Saudi state television and a local Bahraini newspaper reported that the plot was new to their reports on Sunday night, just days after the island kingdom normalized relations with Israel. activists, have not responded to Associated Press’s requests for comment on the confusion.
The main points of the plot have been made public, as tensions between Iran and the United States remain the main ones after the Trump administration said it had re-invoked all UN sanctions that opposed Tehran for its nuclear program, anything that is disputed through other global powers. revenge for the U. S. drone strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in January, anything long threatened through his colleagues from Iran’s paramilitary revolutionary guards.
Iran’s project to the United Nations rejected Bahrain’s statement that Tehran is concerned as simply “another example in a long series of absurd and false accusations, based on truth. “
“It turns out that there are no restrictions on Iran’s denigration through the United States and its consumer states in the region, which seek to divert attention from its recent betrayal of the Palestinians and their own people,” said project spokeswoman Alireza Miryousefi. AP.
The saudi state television report aired unreleased unreleased images of what appeared to be a police raid in a space with a hidden passage. The images showed attack rifles and explosives, allegedly confiscated in the raid.
Nine activists were arrested, while nine others are believed to be in Iran, according to the Saudi television report.
Authorities discovered the plot after locating an explosive on the street that it allegedly placed to attack a “foreign delegation,” Bahrain’s official newspaper Akhbar Al-Khaleej reported, citing the Ministry of the Interior. which had also monitored oil and military bases, the paper said. The militants also planned to assassinate the bodyguards of Bahraini officials, the newspaper said.
It is not transparent when all the arrests and alleged plots were carried out, as the Akhbar Al-Khaleej report referred to incidents dating back to 2017. The newspaper connected the militants with the Al-Ashtar Brigade, a Shia organization that attributed its duty to several bombings in Bahrain, adding two that killed policemen. The organization has been sanctioned across the United States.
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry later issued what it described as a “clarification” saying that cases date back early this year and “are not new. “However, the media is strictly controlled on the island and access to such trials is limited, suggesting that the government at least encouraged the initial report.
Bahrain is home to the Fifth Fleet, which patrols the waterways of the Middle East. Officers have been involved in the afterlife that sailors and Marines attached to Manama base may be the target, as well as others that make up the 7,000 U. S. troops there. Rebecca Rebarich, spokeswoman for the Fifth Fleet, refused to comment and sent questions to the Bahraini government.
Bahrain, an island off the coast of Saudi Arabia, last week normalized relations with Israel throughout the United Arab Emirates, partly because of its unusual suspicion of Iran. the occupied land of the West Bank sought through the Palestinians. Civil society teams in Bahrain opposed the standardization resolution.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the arrests reported in Bahrain.
Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had pushed to take control of Bahrain after the British left the country, the Bahraini in 1970 overwhelmingly supported the installation of an independent country, and the United Nations Security Council unanimously supported it. Since the Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979, Bahrain’s rulers have blamed Iran for arming the militants on the island. Iran denies the charges.
Bahrain’s Shiite majority has long accused its Sunni leaders of treating them as second-class citizens. They joined pro-democracy activists to call for more political freedoms in 2011, when Arab Spring protests spread across the Middle East. Saudi and Emirati troops helped violently suppress the protests.
Bahrain promised a replacement after the protests, but in recent years Bahrain has suppressed dissent, imprisoned activists and obstructed independent reports on the island. Militant teams such as the al-Ashtar Brigade have introduced small sporadic attacks amid repression.