Iran's Silent War in the Gulf

Iran's Silent War in the Gulf

Posted on April 6, 2013      by jonathanspyer

http://jonathanspyer.com/2013/04/06/irans-silent-war-in-the-gulf/

 

Jerusalem Post, 5/4: A series of trials currently under way in the

neighboring Gulf states of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain offer a glimpse into the

ongoing, silent war being waged by Iran against its regional rivals.

 

Bahrain is of particular interest to Teheran. The tiny island emirate is

home to a Shia majority - ruled over by the Sunni Khalifa monarchy. Iranian

officials often describe Bahrain as rightfully constituting the '14th

province' of Iran. A Shia insurgency was crushed in March, 2011, following

the entry of Saudi, Kuwaiti and UAE forces. Tensions remain high.

 

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is one of the main regional rivals of Iran. The

two, both major oil-producing states, are separated by sectarian loyalties,

strategy toward the west, and straightforward geo-political competition for

dominance in the energy-rich Gulf region.

 

The latest revelations suggest that the long standing use by the Iranian

regime of subversion and irregular warfare as tools of policy in the Gulf as

elsewhere is proceeding apace.

 

In Bahrain, recent revelations have centered on two separate cases. In the

first, a Bahraini citizen convicted in July 2011 of transferring "military

information and identifying sensitive sites in Bahrain" to Iranian diplomats

in Kuwait had his ten year sentence confirmed this week.

 

According to a statement from the court, the man, who has not been named,

sought to photograph 'military and economic installations' in Bahrain, as

well as the homes of individuals employed at the US Juffair naval base on

the island. The Juffair base is the main site in the Gulf offering onshore

services for the US Navy's 5th fleet. The 'diplomats' in question were

identified as members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. IRGC

members have a long history of posing as Iranian diplomats and consular

staff.

 

In the second, more recent case, the Bahraini authorities in late February

arrested eight Bahraini citizens who were accused of membership in a cell

established by the Revolutionary Guards to plan and carry out attacks on

Bahrain's international airport, interior ministry and other public

facilities, and to assassinate Bahraini officials.

 

The Bahrainis identified an IRGC official, code-named 'Abu Naser' as the

head of this group. They claimed to have captured a host of evidence,

including electronic equipment, incriminating the arrested men. The

authorities also maintained that the members of the cell attended IRGC

training camps in Iran and Hizballah-run centers in Iraq.

 

In Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, the authorities in March arrested 16 Saudi

citizens, an Iranian and a Lebanese, similarly on suspicion of membership in

a cell established by Iranian intelligence elements, and tasked with

gathering information and providing documents concerned with 'installations

and vital areas' in the kingdom. The Saudi citizens all hail from the

country's 2 million strong Shia minority.

 

The Iranians, predictably, have denied all the accusations. Iran and its

regional mouthpieces accuse the Gulf states of seeking to justify their

repression of Shia communities.

 

Thus, the opposition al-Wifaq party in Bahrain denounced the latest arrests.

In Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, 37 Shia clerics issued a statement accusing the

Saudi authorities of escalating sectarian tension as a way of diverting

public attention from other issues.

 

It is indisputable that both the Shia majority in Bahrain and the Saudi Shia

minority face real repression and discrimination. The existence of real and

justified grievances does not, however, cancel out the evidence of Iranian

subversive activity.

 

And it is also clear that the evidence emerging regarding the activities of

the IRGC in both countries follows a pattern familiar both from past

experience and from Iranian activities elsewhere in the region and beyond

it.

 

The use made by Iran of local Shia communities, and the subsequent

engagement of those communities in political violence on its behalf is no

longer in dispute. Past precedent suggests that Iran seeks not only to

recruit participants for paramilitary activity. Rather, Teheran also wishes

to build political influence and power through the sponsorship of Shia

Islamist movements.

 

Their efforts in Bahrain are not of recent vintage. As far back as 1981, the

proxy Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain launched a failed coup

attempt, with the support and probably under the direction of Iran and the

IRGC.

 

The Iranians have spent many patient years building up assets and clients

within the Bahraini opposition.

 

Hasan Mushaima, the Shia Islamist leader of the Haq movement, was openly

pro-Iranian and known to have strong links with the Iranian regime. Mushaima

was jailed for life after the 2011 unrest. His son, along with five others,

was convicted (in absentia) 2012 for involvement in an earlier Teheran

sponsored terror cell.

 

Both the mainstream Wifaq opposition movement and the more radical Coalition

for a Republic have pro-Iranian elements within them. The latter includes

the Bahraini Islamic Freedom Movement. The leader of this openly pro-Iranian

body, Saeed Shihaby, was discovered in 2011 to be working in London in

premises owned by the government of Iran.

 

The latest revelations of Iranian subversion in the Gulf come against a

background of frenetic activity by Teheran elsewhere.

 

Just this week, Lebanese-Swedish Hizballah member Hossam Taleb Yaccoub was

convicted of gathering information on Israeli holidaymakers in Cyprus prior

to the bombing at Burgas.

 

A build up of Hizballah and IRGC personnel in Damascus, according to a

report in Al-Arabiya, is now under way, in a determined attempt to hold back

recent rebel advances.

 

An Iranian ship carrying weapons for Shia rebels in north Yemen was seized

last month.

 

Teheran is seeking to guard and expand the perimeters of the client and

proxy structure it has built, at a time when a rival Sunni Islamism is

having its moment.

 

Iran's silent war in the Gulf forms an important front in this larger

campaign.

 

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