Authorities in Bahrain said over the weekend that they had arrested 25 members of an Iran-backed “terror cell” involved in recent attacks on the Bahraini security forces, including a deadly jail break in January.
Authorities in Bahrain claim they have dismantled a number of “terror cells” and arrested 20 individuals who reportedly received military training in Iran and Iraq, the Bahraini state-run media reports.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s official trip to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar has prompted anxiety in Tehran. Erdogan arrived in Riyadh on Monday night after a visit to Bahrain, and he is scheduled to go to Qatar next.
A hardline Iranian site has again engaged in incitement against Bahrain. Tasnim, which is close to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C), the controversial political-military organization that is spearheading Iran’s military interventions in the Middle East, claimed in an article that the overthrow of the Bahraini government is a “public call.”
The introduction of the draft in Gulf monarchies — after decades of sovereign statehood — presents an interesting puzzle. What are the reasons behind the newly implemented conscription? What broader implications does this phenomenon have for the Gulf? This essay addresses these questions.
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah has arrived in Tehran today to deliver a message from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on a strategic dialogue between the Gulf Arab states and Iran, the Iranian and Arab media report. “Gulf states have a true desire that relations with Iran are normal and based on international law,” Sabah said on Tuesday after attending the inauguration of a NATO center in Kuwait.
The leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran is publicly committed to good relations with Bahrain. And yet Tehran’s campaign to undermine the ruling authorities in Manama continues unabated. The latest incendiary reactions from Tehran came in response to the January 15 executions in Bahrain of three men who had been convicted of killing three police officers in 2014.
A Lebanese company fronting for Hezbollah allegedly has contracted with Kuwait University to provide students with training in computers and information science, according to the Kuwaiti daily al-Shahed. Alarmed Kuwaitis have asked the Ministry of Education to investigate the reports. According to the al-Shahed report, the sources claim that the front company is using its program to “brainwash” the students and is providing them with free travel to Lebanon, including tickets and accommodations, which includes arranging visits to Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut.
In its first official reaction to the fall of Aleppo, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) hailed the seizure of Syria’s second largest city as a “divine gift” to the Iranian regime and a prelude to bigger achievements by Iran and its regional proxies across the Middle East.
A hardline Iranian news site that is controlled by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) continues to seek to incite the Bahraini Shiite population. Quoting a Bahraini activist, the site propagated that the “international posture toward the political situation in Bahrain is merely for show” and aimed to “neutralize the Shiite opposition in the country.”
Comment:
A number of Iranian hardline media outlets are presently running articles condemning the Bahraini government for its treatment of the country’s Shiite political leadership. On October 20, the offices of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, a large Shiite political party, were reportedly raided by the Bahraini authorities. Calling it a “historical and strategic mistake,” the Iranian foreign ministry is urging Manama to reach a political settlement on the issue of Shiite political representation in Bahrain.
The intensifying rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is raising sectarian temperatures in some smaller Gulf Cooperation Council (G.C.C.) states. Kuwait’s fractious parliament has seen growing tension and even physical confrontation between its Sunni and Shiite MPs in response to regional developments. Growing tension in Kuwait is also evident in the national media and online forums.
The essays featured here are the products of a workshop series analyzing China’s position in the context of Gulf security, organized by the Department of International Affairs and the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences of Qatar University under the direction of Dr. Imad Mansour.
This essay reveals how decades of sectarian government policy, including divide and rule tactics and discrimination against Bahraini Shiʿa in the workforce and provision of government services, have strengthened sectarian affiliations at the expense of the more inclusive narrative of Bahraini nationalism.
