US, Israeli envoys fly to Bahrain to advance nascent ties

October 18, 2020

JERUSALEM (AP) — A joint American-Israeli delegation headed Sunday for Bahrain, where officials will be signing a number of bilateral agreements following an announcement last month to normalize relations.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat, led the delegation that flew out of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport. Israel’s commercial El Al flight 973 — a nod to the international dialing code for Bahrain — will fly through Saudi Arabia’s airspace en route to Manama, where dignitaries from all three countries will speak at a ceremony after landing.

U.S., Israeli and Bahraini flags festooned the tarmac before take-off. Ben-Shabbat, one of the key Israeli officials involved in negotiations with Bahrain, said ahead of take-off that the visit will “translate plans to actions and concrete agreements” with the signing of a range of deals involving finance, investment, trade, tourism, communications, technology and agriculture.

Another Israeli official said the visit represents the official establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries with the sides expected to sign a joint statement establishing full diplomatic relations.

The decision to establish ties with Israel has outraged the Palestinians, whose leadership has blasted the Bahraini move, and a similar Emirati deal, as a betrayal and an undermining of the Arab stance that recognition of Israel should come only after Palestinians achieve an independent state of their own.

Bahraini civil society groups and opposition figures, already targeted in a yearslong crackdown on dissent, have also spoken out against normalization with Israel. As part of the deal to normalize relations, the two Gulf Arab states and Israel will eventually establish embassies and exchange ambassadors. The Israeli official said the Israeli embassy was expected to open in Bahrain in the coming months.

Similar to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain is expected to open its embassy at some point in the city of Tel Aviv, where most foreign embassies are located because of Jerusalem’s contested status. Bahraini and Israeli officials have held numerous conversations since announcing their intention to establish full ties. Sunday’s face-to-face meetings, however, are seen as another step toward normalization.

The El Al flight landed at Bahrain International Airport on Sunday afternoon. The kingdom’s state-owned television channels did not carry the arrival live, nor did the state-run news agency announce the Israelis’ presence.

Meanwhile, Israel and the UAE have already signed a number of business, banking and intergovernmental agreements. Bahrain and the UAE signed the agreement to normalize relations with Israel in a ceremony at the White House on Sept. 15. Egypt and Jordan are the only other two Arab states to sign diplomatic treaties with Israel, in 1979 and 1994, respectively.

The accords made public what had been a gradual strengthening of quiet ties between Israel and several Gulf states — forged in recent years over a shared concern over regional rival Iran. Other Arab countries could follow suit, with analysts and insiders pointing to Sudan, Oman and Morocco as possibilities.

The trip to Bahrain on Sunday also came as U.N. arms embargoes on Iran expired despite American objections. Bahrain, like several other Gulf Arab nations, views Iran as the most-serious threat to its security in the Persian Gulf.

The Israeli delegation is slated to fly back to Tel Aviv later on Sunday, while the Americans will head to the UAE before flying to Israel on Tuesday. Last month, the first known commercial flight between the two countries brought a delegation of Israeli officials to Manama to discuss cooperation between Israel and Bahrain following the signing of an agreement to normalize ties.

Bahrain’s long-serving prime minister dies at age 84

November 11, 2020

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Bahrain’s Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, one of the world’s longest-serving prime ministers who led his island nation’s government for decades and survived the 2011 Arab Spring protests that demanded his ouster over corruption allegations, died on Wednesday. He was 84.

Bahrain’s state-run news agency announced his death, saying he had been receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic in the United States, without elaborating. The Mayo Clinic declined to comment. Prince Khalifa’s power and wealth could be seen everywhere in this small nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. His official portrait hung for decades on walls alongside the country’s ruler. He had his own private island where he met foreign dignitaries, complete with a marina and a park that had peacocks and gazelle roam its grounds.

The prince represented an older style of Gulf leadership, one that granted patronage and favors for support of the Sunni Al Khalifa family. That style would be challenged in the 2011 protests by the island’s Shiite majority and others, who demonstrated against him over long-running corruption allegations surrounding his rule.

Though less powerful and frailer in recent years, his machinations still drew attention in the kingdom as a new generation now jostles for power. “Khalifa bin Salman represented the old guard in more ways than just age and seniority,” said Kristin Smith Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute. “He represented an old social understanding rooted in royal privilege and expressed through personal patronage.”

Bahrain’s Royal Court announced a week of official mourning, with a burial coming after the return of his body. State television aired a recitation of Quranic verses, showing a black-and-white image of the prince.

Prince Khalifa was born into the Al Khalifa dynasty that for more than two centuries has ruled Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf whose name in Arabic means the “two seas.” The son of Bahrain’s former ruler, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa who ruled from 1942 to 1961, the prince learned governance at his father’s side as the island remained a British protectorate.

Prince Khalifa’s brother, Sheikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, took power in 1961 and served as monarch when Bahrain gained its independence from Britain in 1971. Under an informal arrangement, Sheikh Isa handled the island’s diplomacy and ceremonial duties while Prince Khalifa ran the government and economy.

The years that followed saw Bahrain develop rapidly as it sought to move beyond its dependence on dwindling oil reserves. Manama at that time served as what Dubai in the United Arab Emirates ultimately became, a regional financial, service and tourism hub. The opening of the King Fahd Causeway in 1986 gave the island nation its first land link with its rich and powerful neighbor, Saudi Arabia, and offered an escape for Westerners in the kingdom who wanted to enjoy Bahrain’s alcohol-soaked nightclubs and beaches.

But Prince Khalifa increasingly saw his name entangled in corruption allegations, such as a major foreign corruption practices case against aluminum producer Alcoa over using a London-based middleman to facilitate bribes for Bahraini officials. Alcoa agreed to pay $384 million in fines to the U.S. government to settle the case in 2014.

The U.S. Embassy in Manama similarly had its own suspicions about Prince Khalifa. “I believe that Shaikh Khalifa is not wholly a negative influence,” former U.S. Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann wrote in a 2004 cable released by WikiLeaks. “While certainly corrupt he has built much of modern Bahrain.”

Those corruption allegations fueled discontent, particularly among Bahrain’s Shiite majority who still today complain of discrimination by the government. In February 2011, protesters inspired by Arab Spring demonstrations across the Mideast filled the streets and occupied the capital Manama’s Pearl Roundabout to demand political reforms and a greater say in the country’s future.

While some called for a constitutional monarchy, many others pressed for the removal of the long-ruling prime minister and other members of the Sunni royal family altogether, including King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

At one point during the height of the unrest in March 2011, thousands of protesters besieged the prime minister’s office while officials met inside, demanding that Prince Khalifa step down over corruption allegations and an earlier, deadly crackdown on the demonstrations. Protesters also took to waving one Bahraini dinar notes over allegations Prince Khalifa bought the land on which Bahrain’s Financial Harbor development sits for just a single dinar.

Robert Gates, a former U.S. secretary of defense under President Barack Obama, wrote in his memoirs that he urged the king at the time to force Prince Khalifa from the premiership, describing him as “disliked by nearly everyone but especially the Shia.”

Bahraini officials soon crushed the protests with the backing of troops from neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A government-sponsored report into the protests and crackdown later described security forces beating detainees and forcing them to kiss pictures of King Hamad and Prince Khalifa.

Low-level unrest continued in the years that followed, with Shiite protesters frequently clashing with riot police. Shiite militant groups, whom Bahrain’s government allege receive support from Iran, planted bombs that killed and wounded several members of the country’s security forces.

But while other hard-line members of the Al Khalifa family actively pushed for a confrontation with Shiites, Prince Khalifa maintained contacts with those the government opposed. Even with his influence waning, he called Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, in 2019 during the holy month of Ramadan despite Bahrain being one of four Arab nations boycotting Doha in a political dispute.

“Khalifa bin Salman could and did work with both Sunni and Shia, especially through his relations with Bahrain’s business community,” Diwan said. “He brought this same personalistic approach to relations with other Gulf monarchs, and was genuinely uncomfortable with the new politics exemplified by coarse attacks on the Qatari leadership.”

Slowly though, Prince Khalifa’s influence waned as he faced unexplained health problems. He was admitted to hospital in November 2015 but was later released. He also traveled to southeast Asia for medical appointments. In late November 2019, he traveled to Germany for undisclosed medical treatments, remaining there for months.

In September, a U.S. Air Force C-17 flying hospital flew from Germany to Rochester, Minnesota, following by a royal Bahraini aircraft. While U.S. and Bahraini officials declined to comment on the flights, it came just after America offered the same care to Kuwait’s ruling emir just before his death.

Prince Khalifa was married and has three surviving children, sons Ali and Salman and daughter Lulwa. Another son, Mohammed, died previously.

Associated Press writers Adam Schreck and Isabel DeBre contributed to this report.

Jordan: Bahrain, Israel normalization deal not welcomed

September 12, 2020

Jordan announced today that necessary steps to achieve a fair peace should come from Israel after Bahrain and Israel announced a normalization deal, Anadolu Agency reports.

Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Israel should stop procedures to undermine the two-state solution and end its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.

Morroccan Tawheed and Islah Movement described the agreement as a betrayal to Palestinians.

The head of the movement, Abdurrahim Sheyhi, told Anadolu Agency that Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who last month signed a similar deal with Israel, served the interests of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during difficult election campaigns before elections in those countries.

Sheyhi said residents in Bahrain and the UAE will definitely continue to reject the deals and the agreements will remain between the regimes.

Bahrain is the fourth Arab nation to have diplomatic relations with Israel, after Egypt in 1979, Jordan in 1994 and the United Arab Emirates in August.

Source: Middle East Monitor.

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200912-jordan-bahrain-israel-normalisation-deal-not-welcomed/.

Israel, Bahrain agree to establish full diplomatic ties

[9/11/2020]

AMMONNEWS – Bahrain and Israel have agreed to establish full diplomatic relations, US President Donald Trump announced on Friday, hailing the deal as “a historic breakthrough”.

In a joint statement, the United States, Bahrain and Israel said the agreement was reached after Trump spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa on Friday.

“This is a historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East,” the statement reads.

The deal comes after Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced a similar agreement last month.

Bahrain will join Israel and the UAE for a signing ceremony at the White House on September 15, Trump told reporters on Friday.

“It’s unthinkable that this could happen and so fast,” he said about the Israel-Bahrain deal.

Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, hailed the agreements as “the culmination of four years of great work” by the Trump administration.

“We’re seeing the beginning of a new Middle East, and the president has really secured alliances and partners in trying to pursue that,” Kushner said.

In a Hebrew-language statement, Netanyahu said he was “moved” to announce the agreement with Bahrain, which he said “adds to the historic peace with the United Arab Emirates”.

For its part, Bahrain said on Friday it supports a “fair and comprehensive” peace in the Middle East, the country’s BNA state news agency reported.

That peace should be based on a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, King Hamad said.

‘Treacherous stab’

Palestinian leaders have criticized Arab states for normalizing ties with Israel while it continues its military occupation of Palestinian lands, saying such deals threaten to cement the status quo.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said the Bahrain-Israel deal was “another treacherous stab to [the] Palestinian cause”.

Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said Palestinians have unequivocally condemned Friday’s announcement.

Ibrahim said Al Jazeera spoke to a Palestinian official close to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas who said peace between Arab countries and Israel “will not happen without the Palestinian issue being resolved”.

She said the official also said they did not believe Israel’s deals with Bahrain and the UAE would have happened “without regional backing”.

Kushner, speaking to reporters in a call from the White House soon after Friday’s announcement, said the UAE and Bahrain agreements “will help reduce tension in the Muslim world and allow people to separate the Palestinian issue from their own national interests and from their foreign policy, which should be focused on their domestic priorities”.

US election looms

Since coming into office, the Trump administration has pursued staunchly pro-Israel policies, from moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to ordering the PLO to shutter its Washington, DC, office and recognizing Israel’s occupation on the Syrian Golan Heights.

The US president and his advisers have championed a so-called “deal of the century” proposal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – and they have courted Arab Gulf states to try to drum up support for that initiative.

Bahrain, for example, hosted a US-led conference in June 2019 to unveil the economic side of the proposal, and Emirati and Saudi leaders voiced support at the time for any economic agreement that would benefit Palestinians.

Palestinian leaders boycotted that summit, however, saying the Trump administration was not an honest broker in any future negotiations with Israel.

Source: Ammon News.

Link: http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleno=43985.

Bahrain sentences six to death for ‘assassination plot’

2017-12-25

DUBAI – Bahrain’s top military court sentenced six men to death on Monday after convicting them of charges including plotting to assassinate the Gulf state’s armed forces chief, state media reported.

It was the first official mention of any plot against the life of Field Marshal Sheikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa, who is a member of the ruling family, but the Bahrain News Agency gave no further details of when or where it was alleged to have taken place.

Tiny but strategic Bahrain has been gripped by unrest for years as its Sunni royal family has resisted demands from its Shiite majority for a constitutional monarchy with an elected prime minister.

A judicial source said that all six of those sentenced to death on Monday were Shiites.

BNA said that one of them was a serving soldier before his arrest and that all six were also stripped of their citizenship.

The court sentenced seven other defendants to seven-year jail terms and deprived them too of their citizenship. Five men were acquitted.

Only 10 of the defendants are in custody, BNA said. The other eight are on the run — either inside Bahrain or in Iran or Iraq.

Since crushing Shiite-led street protests in 2011, Bahraini authorities have cracked down on all dissent, banning both religious and secular opposition parties and jailing hundreds.

Human rights watchdogs say that counter-terrorism legislation has been abused to prosecute many peaceful opposition figures.

The United States has criticized Bahrain for its human rights record but the kingdom holds a strategic position just across the Gulf from Iran and provides the home base for the US Fifth Fleet.

Source: Middle East Online.

Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=86556.

Bahraini jailed for ‘insulting king’ deported

2017-11-03

MANAMA – A Bahraini citizen convicted of “insulting the king” and stripped of his nationality has been deported to Iraq after serving a two-year jail sentence, Amnesty International said on Friday.

Ibrahim Karimi was released from the notorious Jaw prison on Monday and “deported to Iraq the next day”, Amnesty said in a report.

He had served a sentence of two years and one month for allegedly “insulting the king” of Bahrain as well as Saudi Arabia and its ruler, and for possession of a stun gun.

Karimi was sentenced in 2016 but his citizenship had been revoked by the Bahraini authorities more than three years earlier.

Amnesty said Karimi had been found guilty of “publicly inciting hatred and contempt against the regime” and of “publicly insulting the king”.

He was also convicted of “insulting Saudi Arabia and its king” in a tweet, following the deadly 2015 collapse of a massive construction crane at the Grand Mosque in Mecca that killed more than 100 people.

Karimi has denied ownership of the twitter account.

Amnesty has described Karimi as a “prisoner of conscience”.

Authorities in Manama have stepped up prosecution of dissidents in recent months, granting military courts the right to try civilians for charges including terrorism as protests demanding an elected government in the Sunni-ruled monarchy near their seventh year.

Dozens of mostly Shiite protesters have been jailed and number of high-profile activists and clerics stripped of their citizenship since protests erupted in 2011.

Bahrain, a key ally of the United States and home to the US Fifth Fleet, accuses Shiite Iran of training “terrorist cells” that aim to overthrow the Bahraini government.

Iran denies the allegation.

Source: Middle East Online.

Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=85757.

Bahrain FM heads to Turkey amid bitter Gulf row

2017-06-09

ANKARA – The foreign minister of Bahrain, one of the Arab countries to cut ties with Qatar amid a bitter row between the Gulf neighbors, will on Saturday visit Turkey which has close ties with Doha, the Turkish foreign ministry said

The announcement came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ratified on Friday a bill approved by Turkish lawmakers to deploy troops to a Turkish base in Qatar in a move seen as Ankara’s support to Doha.

Earlier this week Erdogan criticized the sanctions against Qatar, saying he intended to “develop” ties, but he was careful not to criticize Riyadh.

Turkey has close ties with Doha including in the energy sector, but it also maintains good relations with the other Gulf states.

Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa will meet with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu , as well as Erdogan to discuss the “latest developments in the region”, the ministry said in a statement.

A senior Turkish official said the Bahraini minister will spend four days in Istanbul.

Bahrain joined Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and other states this week in cutting ties with Qatar over what they say is the emirate’s financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional arch-rival.

The Arab countries closed air, sea and land links with Qatar, barred the emirate’s planes from their airspace and ordered Qatari citizens out within 14 days.

The crisis escalated further on Friday after Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain released a list of 59 Qatari and Doha-based people and entities linked to “terrorism”.

Source: Middle East Online.

Link: http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=83471.

Bahrain city hall set ablaze as execution protests rage

Monday 16 January 2017

Protesters set abalze a city hall was set ablaze overnight in Bahrain, the government said Monday, as fresh violence erupted over the executions of three men convicted of a deadly bomb attack on police.

The fire in the building at Shamalia, south of the capital Manama, was eventually brought under control, said the interior ministry, without explicitly linking it to the executions.

“According to initial reports, the fire was intentional and the specialized services are taking the necessary measures,” the ministry wrote on Twitter.

The blaze came after three men were put to death by firing squad on Sunday over the bomb attack on police in 2014, sparking clashes between angry protesters and security forces.

“Sami Mushaima, Ali al-Singace and Abbas al-Samea were convicted of manufacturing and planting improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that were detonated remotely after luring first responders into the fatal ambush,” said a statement by Bahrain’s London Embassy.

Their executions were the first in the country since 2010. Rights campaigners said the three men were tortured into confessions.

Protests continued overnight, with dozens of men and women marching through the streets of Sanabes village chanting slogans against the Khalifa dynasty, according to witnesses.

Demonstrators tried to reach the main street of Sanabes, the hometown of the three executed men.

Sanabes is the closest village to the Pearl roundabout, the epicenter of a month-long uprising that the security forces crushed in mid-March 2011.

The square’s famous monument was razed to the ground after the protesters were driven out.

Protests turned violent overnight in several other villages, according to other witnesses who said police opened fire to disperse demonstrators, wounding several of them.

Bahrain’s authorities do not permit international news agencies to cover events independently.

The executions were criticized by international human rights groups, as well as Britain and the European Union.

Iran and the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah strongly condemned the executions.

Bahrain, which has been ruled by the Sunni Khalifa monarchy for more than two centuries, has a majority Shia population which has long complained of marginalization.

It has been rocked by sporadic unrest since the Gulf-backed security forces brutally crushed the Arab Spring-inspired uprising in 2011.

Source: Middle East Eye.

Link: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/bahrain-city-hall-set-ablaze-execution-protests-rage-63460128.

Bahrain executes 3 convicted in deadly police bombing

January 15, 2017

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Bahrain on Sunday carried out its first executions since an Arab Spring uprising rocked the country in 2011, putting to death three men found guilty of a deadly bomb attack on police.

The executions of the Shiite men drew swift condemnation from human rights groups and sparked outrage among opponents of the Sunni-ruled government, who see the charges as politically motivated. Activists allege that testimony used against the condemned men was obtained through torture.

Bahrain’s public prosecution said the death sentences were carried out by firing squad. Photos shared by activists purporting to show the bodies of the men showed a tight grouping of multiple gunshot wounds to the heart.

The executions were the first in the U.S.-allied nation since 2010 and followed a spike in protests in solidarity with the convicted men. Abbas al-Samea, Sami Mushaima and Ali al-Singace were found guilty in 2015 of killing two Bahraini policemen and an Emirati officer deployed to bolster the country’s security forces in a bomb attack the previous year. A court upheld their death sentences last Monday.

Bahrain is a tiny island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia that hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which patrols the waters around the Arabian Peninsula and is the naval counterweight to nearby Shiite powerhouse Iran.

Government forces crushed the 2011 uprising with help from allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but the country continues to face low-level unrest led by a majority Shiite population that feels marginalized by the Sunni monarchy.

Bahrain also maintains close ties to Britain, which is building a naval base of its own in the country. Over the past two and a half months, Prince Charles, Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson have all paid visits to the island.

Johnson made a point of underscoring Britain’s opposition to the death penalty hours after the sentences were carried out. “The Bahraini authorities are fully aware of our position and I have raised the issue with the Bahraini government,” he said in a statement.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets Saturday in solidarity with the condemned men as rumors spread that their executions were imminent. Images shared on social media showed activists blocking roads with burning debris and hurling petrol bombs in clashes with police.

Nicholas McGeehan, a researcher who monitors Bahrain for Human Rights Watch, called the executions inflammatory and unjust as he urged the kingdom’s allies to “publicly and unequivocally condemn these killings.” Amnesty International deputy director Samah Hadid called the executions “a deeply regressive step.”

Protests and clashes continued Sunday despite a heavy presence of riot police deployed in predominantly Shiite areas. Witnesses said shops were shuttered in Daih, where the 2014 bombing happened. Garbage bins were seen overturned and set alight in the streets.

One police officer was wounded when several people shot at a police patrol in Bani Jamra, west of the capital Manama, the Interior Ministry said Sunday. It gave no further details. The Ashtar Brigade, a Shiite militant group that claimed the 2014 police attack and a number of other bombings in Bahrain, took responsibility for the attack on the police officer on social media. The Associated Press could not immediately verify the post, though it came in a forum often used by the group.

Iran, which supported the 2011 uprising but denies any role in the violence, condemned the executions. “The lack of transparency in the unfair trial of the three Bahraini citizens was confirmed by the international community, human rights and all popular bodies all around the world,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said in remarks carried by state-run media.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah also condemned the execution of the three men, calling it “a crime” and “extrajudicial killing” that would undermine any chance for a political solution in Bahrain.

The militant group, which has been critical of the Bahraini government’s crackdown on the Shiite uprising, said international silence toward what takes place in Bahrain must be met with the “largest solidarity campaign.”

Al-Samea and Mushaima alleged they were subjected to electric shocks, beatings, cigarette burns, sleep deprivation and sexual assault while in custody, Amnesty International reported in 2015. Al-Singace’s mother says her son was also tortured, according to British rights group Reprieve.

“It is nothing short of an outrage — and a disgraceful breach of international law — that Bahrain has gone ahead with these executions,” Reprieve director Maya Foa said. “The death sentences handed to Ali, Sami and Abbas were based on ‘confessions’ extracted through torture, and the trial an utter sham.”

Government officials did not respond to a request for comment Sunday on the torture allegations. Bahraini officials have previously said the government is opposed to any kind of mistreatment and has safeguards in place to prevent it.

Bahrain’s last execution was of a Bangladeshi man in 2010. A number of death sentences have been issued since then. The three put to death Sunday were the first who had held Bahraini citizenship executed since 1996, according to Reprieve, though they were technically stateless at the time of their deaths after being stripped of their citizenship when convicted.

Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

Iran threatens Bahrain, Yemen with ‘Islamic conquest’ like Aleppo

December 17, 2016

A senior Iranian military commander has threatened further wars of conquest after describing the recent collapse of the Syrian opposition in Aleppo as an “Islamic conquest”, as footage has appeared showing Syrian refugees attempting to evacuate the ravaged city being shot at by Iran-backed Shia jihadists.

In comments to local Iranian media, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) General Hossein Salami said: “It is now time for the Islamic conquests. After the liberation of Aleppo, Bahrain’s hopes will be realized and Yemen will be happy with the defeat of the enemies of Islam.”

The IRGC commander also said that “the people of Mosul will taste the taste of victory,” in reference to the ongoing Mosul operations.

The taste of “victory”, however, tasted of blood and terror in Aleppo as the Middle East correspondent for BuzzFeed News tweeted footage of what pro-Assad regime Iranian proxies were doing there.

Borzou Daragahi tweeted “This is what hell on earth looks like,” as video footage from the devastated city shows “hungry, freezing men, women and children” who are trying to evacuate Aleppo are fired upon by the Shia jihadists.

This footage was supported by further reports and footage from Syrian journalist Rami Jarrah. Jarrah’s footage shows witnesses recounting their stories of how their convoy that was travelling with the Red Cross was waylaid by the Assad regime.

As the men in the video are talking, they and a vast convoy of cars come under attack by Assad regime, creating panic as people try to escape.

Iran’s ’empire’ and ‘Shia Liberation Army’

Salami’s comments are not the first to emerge from within influential and powerful Iranian official circles.

In March 2015, Presidential Adviser Ali Younesi said that the Iraqi capital of Baghdad was now a “capital of the Iranian empire,” inflaming the Arab world and especially Iraqis who have felt Iran’s pervading and dominating influence in their country.

Last November, Iranian army Chief of Staff General Mohammed Bagheri said that his country would in all likelihood set up military bases in Yemen, Syria and other Arab countries.

Speaking to the state-run Mashregh news agency in August, retired IRGC General Mohammad Ali Falaki said that Iran had created a “Shia Liberation Army” under the command of IRGC Qods Force commander Brigadier-General Qassem Soleimani.

According to Falaki, the Shia Liberation Army was already active on three “fronts” in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Source: Middle East Monitor.

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20161217-iran-threatens-bahrain-yemen-with-islamic-conquest-like-aleppo/.