Two killed in Bahrain 'terrorist' explosions, authorities say

Two foreigners were killed and a third injured when a series of explosions rocked Bahrain, government officials said Monday, a new eruption of violence that authorities labeled as terrorist acts bent on destabilizing the divided country.

The three men, all Asians, were victims of homemade bombs, one man dying after kicking a device and another killed near a movie theater, Bahraini police told state media.

The third man, a cleaner, was reported to be in serious condition. Like many Gulf countries, Bahrain brings in a large number of foreign laborers from Asia, including many workers from Pakistan and elsewhere in South Asia.

“The culprits who committed these heinous crimes will be dealt with severely and pursued and legal actions will be taken against them in compliance with provision of the anti-terror law,” the Bahrain News Agency said in a statement attributed to Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Khalifa.

The main opposition party, Wefaq, condemned the reported attacks but questioned what had happened. “Due to absence of independent human rights and media parties, it is difficult to clearly detect the truth behind incidents that are said to have occurred,” it said in a statement.

The reported explosions in the heart of Manama mark a new kind of violence in the island nation. Until now, clashes have largely been confined to the villages outside the capital.

Bahrain has been enmeshed in turmoil for more than a year and a half, as dissidents push for greater democracy and a stronger voice for Shiite Muslims in the Sunni monarchy. Though the Bahraini government has agreed to some reforms after an independent commission called for change, human rights groups and opposition activists say abuses and suppression of dissent have persisted.

Bahrain bans all protests and rallies, citing security threats

Bahrain has banned all protests and rallies, arguing that a complete stop to such gatherings is needed to maintain security in the island nation.

Interior Minister Sheik Rashid ibn Abdullah Khalifa ordered the move, a sweeping attempt to bring its long-simmering unrest to a halt. An Interior Ministry statement issued Tuesday said “rallies and gatherings were associated with violence, rioting and attacks on public and private property.... They also were a major threat to the safety of the public.”

Anyone calling for rallies or taking part in them would face “legal actions,” the statement said.

Bahrain has been roiled by protests for more than a year by dissidents upset with the Sunni Muslim monarchy over police abuses and the marginalization of Shiite Muslims. While the government has undertaken some reforms, human rights groups and activists say abuses have continued, including the jailing of peaceful protesters. Amnesty International laments many “prisoners of conscience” remain behind bars.

Egypt president to Syria's Assad: Step down before it's too late

CAIRO -- In his first speech to the League of Arab Nations, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday told Syrian leader Bashar Assad to learn from recent history and step down immediately "before it’s too late."

Addressing Arab foreign ministers in Cairo, the Islamist president urged them to make Syria their first priority.

The address was Morsi's first key foreign policy speech since he was elected two months ago following the uprising that deposed Hosni Mubarak last year. In the Middle East, his comments were perceived as a tenacious effort to assert the country’s influence in the region. 

“Our Syrian brethren are dear to us all and Syria is in our hearts. I repeat what I said in Mecca and Tehran: The blood of the Syrian people is on all of our necks,” he told 21 members of the Arab League, excluding Syria, whose membership was suspended in November.

Morsi said Egypt would support the Syrian people’s struggle for freedom without interfering in the country's internal affairs. 

He also said that foreign intervention in Syria would not be welcomed. The comment was seen as directed at Iran, whose leaders have previously expressed support for the Syrian regime. The Assad family, which has ruled Syria for four decades, are Alawites, an offshoot of the Shiite Muslim faith that predominates in Iran.

Bahrain upholds sentences for dissidents accused of plotting coup

This post has been updated. See the note below for details.

Thirteen people accused of plotting to overthrow the Bahraini government had their sentences upheld Tuesday in a Manama appeals court, in a case that has alarmed rights groups and drawn rebukes from Britain and Denmark.

Bahraini state media reported that the High Court of Appeal had confirmed the sentences for the 13 men, which range from five years to life in prison, and reduced the sentence for a 14th person from two years to six months behind bars. Several others who were convicted on similar charges have fled the country, according to a government statement.

The convicts still facing life sentences include Abdulhadi Khawaja, an opposition leader who launched a 110-day hunger strike earlier this year in a bid to draw more attention to the case.

The defendants were assured a fair trial, had full access to their attorneys and were given full medical care during their incarceration, the Bahrain Information Affairs Authority said Tuesday. All were given the chance to speak in their defense; some spoke for more than two hours at a time, the authority said.

The Bahraini dissidents were first convicted in military courts after an eruption of anti-government protests in the island monarchy last year. Protests against the Sunni monarchy have raged for more than a year and a half as activists demand greater democracy and more voice for Shiite Muslims.

Egypt president criticized Syria; Iranian viewers hear 'Bahrain'

TEHRAN -- Days ago, the Egyptian president unsettled his Iranian hosts by calling Syria an oppressive regime -- an assertion that flies in the face of the Iranian government view that Syria is being sabotaged by terrorists backed by the West.

Iranians tuning into state television, however, heard something quite different, as a Farsi translator used the word “Bahrain” rather than “Syria.”

The switch made Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi appear to be excoriating a government Iran has criticized for cracking down on Shiite Muslim protesters, instead of an ally Iran has defended against mounting international pressure. The controversial speech took place last week in Tehran at a summit of the Non-aligned Movement, an alliance of more than 100 nations that dates back to the Cold War era.

Bahrain pilloried the mistranslation as “falsification and distortion made by the Iranian media,” issuing an official note of protest to the Iranian charge d’affaires Saturday and demanding an apology. The act could hurt relations and “brotherly ties” between Bahrain and Egypt, it said.

Iranian media have reported officials saying the switch was a simple error in translation: The head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting called it a “slip of tongue error,” according to Shargh, a reformist daily.

Bahrain activist sentenced to three years in prison

This post has been updated. See the note below for details.

Bahrain sentenced a prominent human rights activist to three years in prison Thursday, saying he had organized and taken part in illegal rallies and incited protesters to attack police.

Nabeel Rajab "had called in public speeches for a demonstration to confront public security personnel, inciting violence and escalation against law enforcement officers, resulting in deaths during those confrontations," prosecutor Mohamed Hazza told the official Bahrain News Agency. The activist had already been serving a three-month sentence for criticizing the government on Twitter.

Human rights groups slammed the new sentence, saying Rajab had been convicted solely for exercising his rights. Amnesty International called it "a dark day for justice in Bahrain" that threw into question whether Bahrain was committed to the reforms it has claimed.

"The international community can no longer be under the illusion that Bahrain is on the path of reform when such blatant ruthless tactics are being used to suppress dissenting voices," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui of Amnesty International, calling for Rajab to be released immediately.

Bahrain has been in the grip of protests against its Sunni Muslim monarchy for a year and a half, as demonstrators demand greater democracy and more voice for Shiite Muslims.

Rajab, a well-known activist who was among dozens of Shiites accused of plotting a coup nearly two years ago, has complained of repeated harassment and attacks, including a reported beating by security forces in January.

The island nation pledged to institute reforms after an independent commission condemned police abuses during a crackdown on protests, recently charging 15 police officers for abusing medics. At the same time, the government has defended some of its actions as necessary to quell violent protesters who have been caught on video hurling Molotov cocktails at police.

Bahrain tear gassing amounts to torture, rights group says

A new report charges that  Bahrain has badly injured and even killed protesters by swamping them with massive clouds of tear gas, flooding closed spaces such as cars and houses with the toxic chemicals.

Physicians for Human Rights, a rights group based in Massachusetts, said the island nation was misusing tear gas against Shiite Muslim civilians, wielding it as a weapon with grave health risks. The unrelenting gas attacks cause such severe suffering that they amount to torture, the group said.

Two men, one of them asthmatic, died after repeatedly being exposed to tear gas in their homes, the report found. Several women suffered miscarriages shortly after being exposed to the gas, the group said. Other Bahrainis reported vomiting, shortness of breath, even loss of consciousness from the gas that has blanketed villages outside the capital.

Protests demanding greater democracy and more rights for Shiites have raged for more than a year and a half in the Sunni Muslim monarchy. Bahrain says it is trying to control thugs who have hurled Molotov cocktails at police during protests, acts that have repeatedly been captured on video.

“Any means that have been exercised by security forces adhere to international standards of riot control,” the government told the Associated Press. “Suggestions that the use of tear gas in Bahrain is severely injurious or even lethal is simply not backed up by any research or proof.”

Physicians for Human Rights countered that the outpouring of gas far exceeded the minimum force needed to subdue violent protesters. It also found that Bahraini officers had cornered protesters and prevented them from escaping from the gas, perverting its normal use to disperse crowds.

Saudi Arabia reports say protesters detained in east

Saudi protesters were detained in the area of Qatif, the official Saudi Press Agency reported Friday, the latest turn in a simmering protest movement on the eastern edge of the kingdom.

Qatif has been the scene of clashes between police and Shiite Muslim protesters. Saudi Arabia accuses Shiite-led Iran of instigating the unrest in the city; protesters say they are agitating to free political prisoners and abolish discrimination against Shiites, who are minorities in the Sunni-dominated kingdom.

State media said the protesters were instigating riots and were detained Friday for setting tires on fire. Witnesses told Agence France-Presse that security forces had opened fire on the protesters, wounding several. The Saudi Press Agency reported that there were no casualties.

Though Saudi Arabia has not had mass protests on the same scale as other countries engulfed the Arab Spring, the Shiite protest movement has persisted in the east, growing more intense after a prominent Shiite cleric critical of the government was injured and arrested.

In an interview this year with The Times, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal said that the regional wave of uprisings could be dangerous. Last year, Saudi troops were sent into neighboring Bahrain to help its government suppress Shiite demonstrations, though periodic protests have continued. Bahraini activists have launched demonstrations in support of Qatif dissidents.

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Tighter sanctions on Iran trigger threats and defiance

Harsh new sanctions imposed on Iran were intended to so deprive its citizens of life's necessities that the government would be forced to end what the U.S. and its allies fear is a program to build nuclear weapons.

Instead, Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Tuesday test-fired missiles capable of reaching Israel and the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet base in Bahrain. Iranian lawmakers have threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to bottle up Persian Gulf neighbors' oil shipments. Senior officials warned that progress in nuclear negotiations won't occur until the United States and its allies show Iran more respect.

Iran says that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, and since U.S. and European Union sanctions went into effect Sunday its officials have reacted with defiance and bluster. The Central Bank chief has reassured the public that $150 billion in foreign currency reserves should see the country through the trade cutoffs, and officials have said they stockpiled plenty of imported food and consumer goods.

But Middle East analysts see Tehran's posturing as unsustainable in the long run. As food prices soar, gasoline lines lengthen and the rial currency is eroded by inflation, Iranians who care more about their day-to-day existence than having a nuclear program will force leaders to make a choice, experts predict.

Iran gets 80% of its revenue from oil exports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which valued that trade at about $73 billion for 2010. Due to previous sanctions that have curbed Iranian exports and international bank transactions, production has already fallen from 4 million barrels a day two years ago to 3.3 million a day in May, the EIA said. The new sanctions are expected to cut exports by half, creating storage problems for what Iran can't sell and potentially forcing the government to shut down wells.

Those prospects have instigated the muscle-flexing coming out of Tehran in recent days, according to those monitoring the situation.

"I don’t think Iran will try, or that it would succeed in closing the Strait of Hormuz, but they will probably harass shippers in hopes of having an impact on the neighbors' ability to ship out oil," said Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

Attempts to cast Iran as a victim won't rally nationalist spirits for long, Maloney said.

"These themes of conspiracy and economic warfare and of the world being against Iran are part of their history, but they are going to feel the impact of these sanctions in a way that nothing else in the revolution or the Iran-Iraq war had on their lives and wallets in the past 33 years," she said.

The rial has lost 40% of its value against the U.S. dollar since a round of sanctions were approved late last year. As jobs disappear in a shrinking oil industry and household incomes decline, Iranians may come to see their leaders as the cause of their hardships.

Alon Ben-Meir, an Iraqi-born Middle East scholar at New York University's Center for Global Affairs, expects the standoff over Iran's nuclear program to be resolved if and when its leaders realize they will lose power unless they abandon it.

Iran's Islamic leaders see themselves as the guiding influence of the Shiite-inhabited crescent that extends from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, said Ben-Meir. That is why Tehran has insisted on inclusion in the Syrian peace process, he said, to ensure that the minority Shiite-offshoot Alawite sect of Syrian President Bashar Assad retains its grip on power and its political allegiance to Iran.

Israel has threatened to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities if they appear to be near to producing atomic weapons or entering what Ben-Meir calls the "zone of immunity," the relocation of development activities to fortified compounds like one at Fordow, near Qom, that would be invulnerable to air strikes.

Iranian lawmakers have already summoned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to parliament to explain why the economy has deteriorated so rapidly, said Ben-Meir, and the public is "not buying all of this" when told the setbacks are the result of unjustified sanctions.

Defiance is playing well on the domestic front in these early days, say the analysts, but Tehran's leaders will ultimately have to decide between the nuclear program and popular demands for decent living standards.

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Photo: An upgraded medium-range Shahab-1 missile is launched during the second day of military exercises on Tuesday by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard at the Lut desert in southeastern Iran. Tehran's response to tightened sanctions has been defiance. Credit: Mojtaba Heydari/European Pressphoto Agency

Bahrain court cuts jail terms for medics accused of aiding uprising

Nine of the 20 doctors and nurses accused of trying to overthrow the Bahraini monarchy in a hotly contested case were found innocent Thursday in civilian court, and five were released for time already served, the state news agency reported.

Four others will stay in jail, with lighter sentences than a military court handed them nine months ago. The 15-year sentences of two doctors who are no longer in Bahrain were upheld.

Despite the sentence reductions and prisoner releases, human rights group condemned the renewed guilty verdicts for 11 of the medical professionals in what they argue is another sign of Bahrain's continued crackdown on dissent. The new trial, ordered in May, had been seen by many as a chance for the court to overturn the earlier sentences of up to 15 years in prison.

The new sentences range from one month to five years, according to media reports. "It is a travesty of justice that the trials continued and that the medics are now sentenced to jail time,” said Donna McKay, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights.

The 20 medical professionals from the Salmaniya Medical Complex were accused of openly siding with protesters trying to topple the government last year. Bahrain has been in the throes of fervent protests against its king for more than a year, one of the most enduring Arab Spring revolts. Opposition activists have agitated for greater democracy and more voice for the Shiite minority in the island nation.

The Sunni monarchy has taken some steps toward reform and spurred an investigation into abuses committed during a crackdown on protests last year, but human rights groups say it has not gone far enough, charging that police abuses and political repression have continued.

The September convictions of the medics, many of whom alleged they were tortured while in detention, became another flash point in that debate. Doctors claimed they were being persecuted simply for trying to treat wounded protesters. The verdicts alarmed the U.N. human rights office and the U.S. State Department, which challenged whether the military courts had been fair.

The official Bahrain News Agency countered that none of the medics were being charged for treating protesters, but that their charges were “primarily for their involvement in politicizing their profession, breaching medical ethics and, most serious of which, was their call and involvement in the overthrow of the monarchy.” 

"This is a black day for doctors and medical professionals,” Rula Al Safar, a nurse who was among those freed, told the Associated Press.

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