Bahrain breaks up Iran-backed attack plot, Saudi state TV reports

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Bahrain broke up a plot by militants backed by Iran to launch attacks on diplomats and foreigners in the island nation home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, just days after normalizing relations with Israel, Saudi state television reports.

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry and its state media don’t immediately acknowledge the arrests. Bahraini government officials, who routinely claim breaking up plots by militants backed by Iran, don’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Saudi state TV report airs footage of what appears to be police raiding a home with a hidden passage. The footage shows assault rifles and explosives, apparently seized in the raid. A Saudi state TV reporter says those planning the attacks wanted to carry them out in revenge for the US killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani this January in a drone strike in Baghdad.

Some militants have been arrested, while others are believed to be in Iran, the Saudi state TV report says.

Iranian state media acknowledges the reports of the Bahraini arrests, but no official comments on them.

Bahrain is home to the 5th Fleet, which patrols the waterways of the Mideast. Officials have worried in the past that the sailors and Marines attached to the base in Manama could be targeted, as well as others who make up the 7,000 American troops there. Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the 5th Fleet, declines to comment and refers questions to the Bahraini government.

Bahrain, an island kingdom off the coast of Saudi Arabia, just last week normalized relations with Israel alongside the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi state TV report didn’t mention that.

— AP