Bahrain’s state news agency — the BNA — reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) provided military training to six of the suspects, while five others received training from the Iraqi Hezbollah terrorist organization. Three others were trained in Bahrain.
Two exiled Bahrainis living in Iran coordinate the terrorist cell, Bahrain’s interior ministry announced, including a US State Department designated global terrorist — Mortada Majid Al-Sanadi.
Last year, Bahrain authorities foiled a similar IRGC and Lebanese Hezbollah plot to carry out terrorist attacks in the country.
In November 2015, Bahrain arrested 47 people accused of links to “terrorist elements in Iran,” who reportedly planned to conduct imminent attacks in the country. A month later, Bahrain recalled its ambassador to Iran following a raid on a bomb-making factory in Bahrain, and the arrests of individuals with suspected ties to the IRGC.
In Sunday’s arrests, security forces reportedly seized domestically manufactured explosives and communications equipment from the suspects’ homes. These developments suggest that Iranian sponsored proxies may be helping local cells build bombs.
According to the BNA report, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah personally gave the main suspect, Ali Ahmed Fakhwari, $20,000 to fund terrorist activity in Bahrain.
Iran has been accused of plotting terrorist attacks around the world in recent years — mainly through proxies like Hezbollah and the al-Quds Force of the IRGC — in countries such as Egypt, Cyprus, Georgia, Thailand, India and others. In July 2012, a bus bomb widely attributed to Hezbollah killed five Israeli tourists and a bus driver in Bulgaria.
In October 2011, the United Stated foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US in Washington DC, and to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in the US capital.
Source: / algemeiner /