Bahrain foils plot to form Hezbollah

manama — Bahrain charged 169 people on Tuesday suspected of forming “Bahrain’s Hezbollah”, a local version of the armed Shia group, which prosecutors said was trained and backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

The announcement follows scores of arrests and penalties imposed in the Gulf state on defendants accused by the authorities of militancy.

A statement carried by the state news agency BNA said the prosecutor charged 169 defendants, including 111 who had already been arrested. They were accused of forming a terrorist group, planning assassinations and receiving training in handling weapons and manufacturing explosives. “The Public Prosecution had been informed by the Department of criminal investigation ...that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have ordered some of their members to work on unifying different Bahraini militant groups,” the statement said.

“(The groups) would get involved in one terrorist organisation which they called Bahrain’s Hezbollah,” it said, adding the group was planning to send Bahrainis to Iraq, Lebanon and Iran for military training.

A trial is set for October 3, Bahrain News Agency said.

Hezbollah is one of the best trained and equipped militant groups in the world.

The Bahrain authorities and their Gulf Arab allies have also blacklisted Hezbollah as a “terrorist organisation” and banned their citizens from any contact with the group or its members.

Amid the crackdown, local Shia militant groups have carried out several attacks on security forces in Bahrain.