Iran rejects links to busted terror cell in Bahrain

Manama: Iran has rejected claims that a terrorist cell busted by Qatar and Bahrain had links with the Revolutionary Guards or the Basij, the paramilitary militia.

Manama on Friday said that Qatari authorities had arrested four Bahrainis who had planned to attack high-profile targets in Bahrain, including the interior ministry building, the Saudi embassy and King Fahd causeway, the 25-kilometre long terrestrial link between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Four members of the cell were arrested by Qatar as they were attempting to enter the Gulf country from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. The Qataris said that a thorough search of their car yielded documents and a laptop carrying sensitive information, bookings to Syria and cash in US and Iranian currency.

The four suspects, handed over to Manama on November 4, gave the name of an alleged accomplice who was arrested in Bahrain. A fifth member was later arrested in Bahrain.

"The plot was being implemented and members were being sent to Iran to receive military training," the public prosecution official said. "One member travelled to Iran where he was trained on the use of weapons and explosives and he received cash to fund the group. Those who were arrested were on their way to Iran," he said.

Bahrain route

However, Hussain Amir Abdullahian, Iran's deputy foreign minister for Arab and African Affairs, dismissed the reports on ties and contacts between Tehran and the cell members and said that they were "a repetition of the scenario which was originally staged against Tehran by the US last month", in reference to the US statement that federal authorities had foiled a plot by men linked to the Iranian government to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US.

"The scenario is this time raised through a Bahraini method," Amir Abdullahian told the semiofficial Fars news agency on Monday.