The men who built the secret bomb factory had been clever — suspiciously so, Bahraini investigators thought, for a gang known mostly for lobbing molotov cocktails at police. The underground complex had been hewed, foot by foot, beneath the floor of a suburban villa, with no visible traces at street level and only a single entrance, hidden behind a kitchen cabinet.
But the real surprises lay inside. In one room, police found $20,000 lathes and hydraulic presses for making armor-piercing projectiles capable of slicing through a tank. Another held box upon box of the military explosive C-4, all of foreign origin, in quantities that could sink a battleship.
“Most of these items have never been seen in Bahrain,” the country’s investigators said in a confidential technical assessment provided to U.S. and European officials this past fall that offered new detail on the arsenals seized in the villa and in similar raids that have occurred sporadically over nearly three years. In sheer firepower, the report said, the caches were both a “game-changer” and — matched against lightly armed police — “overkill.”
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Update: Gulf ministers condemn Iran’s support to Bahrain ‘terrorists’ (The Nation/AFP)
WNU Editor: Bahrain is a major U.S. ally and home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet .... so what happens in Bahrain will have consequences for U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf. But the Sunni-Shiite divide that has exacerbated the tensions in the country show no signs of being resolved, and considering the multiple wars and conflicts that have engulfed the Middle East for the past few years .... it was only a matter of time before this militancy (where weapons and bombs are being deployed) would show up in Bahrain. As for where the U.S. stands .... this about sums it up .... Trump Administration Drops Human Rights Conditions for F-16 Sale to Bahrain (NBC).
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