Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain

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The Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain was an Iran-based Shia resistance group that advocated theocratic rule in Bahrain against the Sunni ruling Al Khalifa family from the 1970s to the 1990s. It was trained and financed by Iranian intelligence and Revolutionary Guards[1].

It came to international prominence as the front organisation for the 1981 failed coup in Bahrain, which attempted to install Iraqi Ayatollah Hadi al-Modarresi as the spiritual leader of a theocratic state. Al Modarresi had been given asylum in Bahrain in the late 1970s after members of his family were murdered in Iraq by Saddam Hussein, but shortly after his arrival he established the Front and then fled to Iran. Hadi Al Modarresi’s brother, Mohammed, was known as “Khomeini’s chief operative for exporting the Iranian revolution abroad”[2], while Hadi served as Khomeini’s “personal representative” in Bahrain[3]; according to a Time magazine article by Strobe Talbott, Arab intelligence organisations believed that Hadi Al Modarresi’s specific role was the head of the Gulf Affairs Section of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards[4] .

According to Daniel Byman of Georgetown University, Iran's backing of the Front was part of a strategy to support radical Islamist groups throughout the region:

“ For Iran, supporting subversive movements became a way of weakening and destabilizing its neighbors as well as spreading its revolution and toppling what in the eyes of Tehran were illegitimate regimes. In 1981, shortly after the outbreak of the Iranian revolution, Tehran aided Shi’a radicals of the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain in an attempted coup against Bahrain’s ruling Al Khalifa family.[5] ”

One of the Front’s leaders, Iranian cleric Ayatollah Sadeq Rouhani, went further than seeking the institution of a theocratic state and called for Bahrain to be annexed by Iran – reviving a goal long cherished by Iranian nationalists.[6]

The professed aim of the Front was the ‘uprising of all Muslims under Imam Khomeini’[7] and much of the debate surrounding the Front is over the extent to which - at least in the 1970s and 1980s - it was independent from revolutionary Iran’s foreign policy. In some studies it is referred to as an “Iranian proxy”[8], a view expanded upon in Low Intensity Conflict in the Third World by Stephen Blank et al, in which it is argued that the Front’s attempted coup d’etat in 1981 cannot be understood without reference to Iran’s geo-strategic objectives in its war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq:

“ A more persuasive view of the Bahrain incident [1981 coup] is the argument that the military conditions on the Iran-Iraq war front dictated a flanking movement that would isolate Iraq from its Arab support and secure for Iran a commanding position on the maritime oil route out of the Gulf. During the 14 months between the beginning of the war and the Bahrain coup, military activities had settled into a stalemate along a thousand kilometre front. The Iraqis had occupied the portion of Iranian Khuzistan that was ethnically Arab and were at the gates of Ahwaz and Dezful, the two principle oil producing towns of the province. But they were unable to exploit their advantage. The war had also degenerated into a contest of personalities between Khomeini and Saddam Hussein, each of who demanded the dismantlement of the other’s government as a precondidtion of peace…By unleashing the forced of Islamic revolution in Bahrain, Khomeini was betting that he could physically outflank Iraq and capitalise politically on the Gulf Arabs’ failure to support Iraq.[9] ”

The 1981 coup was not a success and following the failure to spur revolution, the Front became associated with bomb attacks, often against ‘soft’ civilian targets. On 1 November 1996, the Front claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Diplomat Hotel, with the group telling the Associated Press "We put a bomb in the Diplomat hotel 20 minutes ago...after the feast...tell the government that we will destroy everyplace."[10] In the 1990s uprising in Bahrain the Front only played a marginal role, as its relationship with Iran, the perception that it represented the “Shirazi faction” (ie followers of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Shirazi) and its strategy of bombings all served to undermine its support among the wider community. Instead, those associated with the London-based Bahrain Freedom Movement were seen as the uprising’s primary spokesmen.

Although banned in the 1990s, King Hamad's reforms allowed them to return to Bahrain to work within the political process, and most today are active in the Islamic Action Party and the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights. For instance, the head of the Front's subsidiary, the "Bahrain Human Rights Organisation", Abdulhadi Al Khawaja, is now the head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, deemed Bahrain's "most radical opposition group".[11].

[edit] References

  1. ^ The International Politics of the Middle East by Raymond Hinnebusch, 2003, Manchester University Press, p194
  2. ^ Low Intensity Conflict in the Third World Stephen Blank, et al, Inc NetLibrary, Press, Air University (U.S.), 1988, p8
  3. ^ Iran’s Persian Gulf Policy: From Khomeini to Khatami by Christin Marschall, Routledge, 2003, p32
  4. ^ Stay just over the horizon this time, Strobe Talbott, Time Magazine, October 25, 1982
  5. ^ Iran, Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Prepared Remarks for the hearing entitled “WMD Terrorism and Proliferant States” before the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attacks of the Homeland Security Committee, Daniel Byman, September 8, 2005
  6. ^ Iran’s Persian Gulf Policy: From Khomeini to Khatami by Christin Marschall, Routledge, 2003 p34
  7. ^ Iran’s Persian Gulf Policy: From Khomeini to Khatami by Christin Marschall, Routledge, 2003, p32
  8. ^ Minorities and State in the Arab World, edited by Ofra Bengio and Gabriel Ben-Dor, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999 p177
  9. ^ Low Intensity Conflict in the Third World, Stephen Blank et al, Air University Press, 1988, p9
  10. ^ Islamic Extremist Bombs Strike Bahrain and Algeria, Emergency Net News Service, November 2, 1996
  11. ^ Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies - Working Paper No. 2006/27 - K. Niethammer

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