Bahrain adopts steps to counter Iran ‘interference’

Bahrain says Sunday it has adopted measures including travel curbs and monitoring of money transfers to counter Iran’s “interference” in the Sunni-ruled kingdom shaken by Shiite-led unrest since 2011.

Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Al-Khalifa speaks of the “dangers of Iran’s interference in the internal security” of Bahrain during a meeting with clerics, MPs and newspaper chiefs, says the official BNA news agency.

“We have taken a series of measures to confront the dangers of terrorism,” Sheikh Rashid says.

These include forming a committee to monitor money transfers and donations to combat the “financing of terrorism” and imposing travel restrictions on citizens, especially aged between 14 and 18, to “unsafe countries,” he says.

Bahrain has previously announced the dismantling of “terror” cells whose members it said were trained by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and Lebanon’s Tehran-backed Shiite movement Hezbollah.

— AFP