Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain

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 [The International Politics of the Middle East by Raymond Hinnebusch, 2003, Manchester University Press, p194] . 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” [ Low Intensity Conflict in the Third World Stephen Blank, et al, Inc NetLibrary, Press, Air University (U.S.), 1988, p8] , while Hadi served as Khomeini’s “personal representative” in Bahrain [ Iran’s Persian Gulf Policy: From Khomeini to Khatami by Christin Marschall, Routledge, 2003, p32] ; 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 [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953597-4,00.html Stay just over the horizon this time] , Strobe Talbott, Time Magazine, October 25, 1982] . 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: 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. [Iran’s Persian Gulf Policy: From Khomeini to Khatami by Christin Marschall, Routledge, 2003 p34] The professed aim of the Front was the ‘uprising of all Muslims under Imam Khomeini’ [ Iran’s Persian Gulf Policy: From Khomeini to Khatami by Christin Marschall, Routledge, 2003, p32] 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” [Minorities and State in the Arab World, edited by Ofra Bengio and Gabriel Ben-Dor, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999 p177] , 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: 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." [ [http://www.emergency.com/md-e-bom.htm Islamic Extremist Bombs Strike Bahrain and Algeria] , Emergency Net News Service, November 2, 1996] 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". [ [http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/WP-Texts/06_27.pdf Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies - Working Paper No. 2006/27 - K. Niethammer ] ] .

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External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/4589/ IFLB website] (outdated)