Fishing boats are pictured at the Muharraq island shoreline north of the Bahraini capital Manama on Dec 20, 2020. (MAZEN MAHDI / AFP)
DUBAI – Bahrain security forces arrested a number of suspected militants ahead of a planned attack and confiscated weapons and explosives that had come from Iran, the interior ministry said on its official Twitter on Monday.
The ministry did not say how many people were arrested or specify their nationalities. It described them as "linked with terrorist groups in Iran" and said they were "plotting terrorist operations against security and civil peace".
Bahrain, host to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet and other international naval operations, has often accused Iran of seeking to subvert the kingdom. Iran has denied such charges.
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The island state was the only Gulf Arab state to witness a sizeable protest movement in the 2011 "Arab Spring", which it quashed with help from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.