Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Bahrain TV screen grab showing Saudi troops arriving in Bahrain yesterday. AP Photo/Bahrain TV via APTN

Saudi troops arrive in Bahrain to help ruling monarchy tackle protests

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have responded to Bahrain’s call for support amid escalating unrest.

SAUDI ARABIAN TROOPS HAVE arrived in Bahrain to bolster the monarchy against escalating demonstrations calling for political reform in the kingdom, marking the first cross-border military response since protests broke out in the Arab world in December.

The UAE has sent around 500 police to Bahrain, which the UAE’s foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan said was a response to Bahrain’s request “to look at ways to help them defuse the tension”.

The Bahraini royal family had appealed to the five other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, of which the UAE is the current president, for support.

Al-Nahyan said other Gulf countries were supporting the Bahraini goverment “to get calm and order in Bahrain and to help both the Bahraini government and people to reach a solution which is for the best for the Bahraini people”.

Gulf leaders are understood to be concerned that political gains by Bahrain’s Shiites over its ruling Sunni Muslims might give Shiite Iran a stepping stone to its rival Saudi Arabia. However, the leaders have focused on the situation in Bahrain rather than regional interests in explaining their provision of military and police support.

A Bahrain expert at the Chatham House think-tank in London, Jane Kinninmont, said that the foreign military intervention denotes a change in the nature of the Gulf council which has had collective defence agreements:

The idea of gathering together to protect a government against its own people seems to be quite another thing.

When word of the foreign military reinforcement filtered through, protesters began blocking roads in Bahrain’s capital Manama and thousands swarmed into Pearl Square, where the protests first kicked off in Bahrain.

- Additional reporting by the AP

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

Close
Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Chicinho
    Favourite Chicinho
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 7:37 AM

    Any chance of some balanced journalism and report on the siege by Turkey and its head hacking allies in Afrin?

    Indiscriminate bombing? Check
    Civilians being massacred? Check
    Lots of kids being blown to bits? Check

    Maybe it’s too real and the status quo is afraid Call it for what it is, 100 years since the Greek and Armenian genocide, the Turkish establishment haven’t lost their Mongol slaying instincts

    111
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Nigel O'Neill
    Favourite Nigel O'Neill
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 7:49 AM

    @Chicinho Hear Hear!!! But balanced journalism doesnt fit the US led Neoliberal western agenda..

    88
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute JimmyMc
    Favourite JimmyMc
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 9:08 AM

    @Nigel O’Neill: It’s actually a Neo-con agenda being delivered by neo- lib reporters who are owned by Neo- cons. You couldn’t make it up.

    44
    See 3 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tommy Roche
    Favourite Tommy Roche
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 11:23 AM

    @Chicinho: The lack of media coverage of what’s going on in Afrin is disgraceful. It’s been under bombardment for weeks now, and has had no water for over a week since Turkey shut of supply from a nearby dam and treatment plant. All we hear in MSM is Turkey’s version of events. And it’s not like the US are nowhere to be seen as their allies are slaughtered. They are actually watching from a few Km’s away and not lifting a finger to intervene. Disgusting.

    18
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Denis McClean
    Favourite Denis McClean
    Report
    Mar 16th 2018, 1:19 AM

    @Chicinho: Not to mention Zionist Israel getting the US to fight a proxy regime change war to install a puppet president. The UN previously recognized Assad’s Syria until Israel and the US decided he should go. Putin is no saint but I’m glad he stuck in there because otherwise they would have establish anew front in Iran and that would not be nice for anyone.

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Joseph Rooney
    Favourite Joseph Rooney
    Report
    Mar 17th 2018, 7:01 PM

    @JimmyMc:
    Don’t forget Fake News RTE.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John003
    Favourite John003
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 8:16 AM

    Goal are really taking sides in this complex 6 year civil war….Seeing things from the Sunni Jahadi side…..Many of the 400000 civilians in Ghouta don’t support the Sunni Jahadi and wish they would take up the offer from Syrian army to surrender and safe passage to another rebel held area to fight on…..Saudi Arabia and Qatar have armed and trained many of these rebels in Saudi proxy war against Iran…..Whatever about been democratic moderate rebels at start of conflict as John Kerry and Joe Biden called them….For many years they are Sunni Jahadi similiar to IS…..Very wrong of Goal to support them…

    76
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jamie Thornton
    Favourite Jamie Thornton
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 8:57 AM

    @John003: well said

    40
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean Conway
    Favourite Sean Conway
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 11:46 AM

    @Jamie Thornton: ‘Sunni jihadists similar to IS’. and backed by the US of course. why can’t journalists report it like it is? because they are owned by corporate greed who have no concept of people suffering.

    24
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute raymond grehan
    Favourite raymond grehan
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 8:18 AM

    The official policy of the west – ‘Regime change’ for Syria has been stymied by Russian military intervention. This policy of Regime change, has involved Britain, the Us and and their allies arming and promoting ‘ moderate rebels’ to destabilize the Syrian Government and destroy the country and it’s people. These moderate rebels are terrorists. The west, for all it’s talk of freedom and Liberty and morality, has descended into a pit of double standards, lies and murder. Everyone who has backed the west’s narrative is also in this pit of blood and shares responsibility – this includes the media here in Ireland and around the world esp. state propaganda outlets like RTE and the BBC.
    It is no wonder there is huge anti Russian sentiment at the moment as they have ruined the complete destruction of Syria for western and Israeli geopolitical goals.

    68
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John003
    Favourite John003
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 8:29 AM

    @raymond grehan: This is not in interest of Israel ….Obama administration did train and arm the rebels in early days of conflict….It was in Jordan not Israel….This Syrian civil war has been a disaster for Israel …. Iran’s proxy army are now on their border with Syria as well as in Lebonan….Israel are close to the Druse in Syria who support Assad….Jews are not stupid supporting a Sunni Jahadi takeover of Syria with one of the main groups Al Nusra in charge would be disaster for Isreal….One of the few things Sunni and Shia agree on is destruction of Israel….Only group Israel support are the Kurds in Northern Syria….

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jamie Thornton
    Favourite Jamie Thornton
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 8:32 AM

    @raymond grehan: well said

    13
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Nigel O'Neill
    Favourite Nigel O'Neill
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 10:06 AM

    @Raymond well said and to add also that this is in Black n white, its not a conspiracy theory. Go check out the white paper named ‘Project for the new American Century’..it tells you all you need.

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jamie Thornton
    Favourite Jamie Thornton
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 7:33 AM

    Sounds like another Whitehelmet story.
    work is going well to cleans the Islamic terrorism when you here this propaganda.

    66
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Nigel O'Neill
    Favourite Nigel O'Neill
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 7:48 AM

    @Jamie Exactly. Have you ever wondered why there are none such articles with inside stories from people in Yemen ?? They have been under constant bombardment by US backed Saudi forces for months and months now and theres a humanitarian crisis underway. I recall a funeral of a family member killed by a dropped bomb and then they blew up the funeral home while all the mourners were there, as one example

    60
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jamie Thornton
    Favourite Jamie Thornton
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 12:50 PM

    @Nigel O’Neill: I know nigel its a sad state of affairs in Yemen at the moment and will be for a long time as long as the UK USA are backing the slaughter.

    13
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Joseph Rooney
    Favourite Joseph Rooney
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 7:04 PM

    @Nigel O’Neill:
    May and the British have blood on their hands. They are arming the Saudi killers.
    That’s why I can’t take their self-righteousness about the Rusian guy seriously.

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Walt Jabsco
    Favourite Walt Jabsco
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 7:23 AM

    In the future the world should look back in shame on events in Syria, which were utterly preventable.

    38
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Nigel O'Neill
    Favourite Nigel O'Neill
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 7:46 AM

    @Walt the events are awful but whi exactly should be ashamed for what exactly?

    30
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Matt Connolly
    Favourite Matt Connolly
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 7:52 AM

    @Nigel O’Neill: the apathy

    9
    See 2 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute TheJeff
    Favourite TheJeff
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 8:12 AM

    @Walt Jabsco:

    Yes because getting involved in regime change has work out so well in the past.. #Iraq

    30
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mick O Donoghue
    Favourite Mick O Donoghue
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 8:16 AM

    @Walt Jabsco: don’t know what to believe anymore. The American paid “rebels” fight on, and the Syrian government drops bombs. I’m sure it’s awful, but the dripfed white-helmet type nonsense doesn’t get attention anymore. No Twitter in Yemen it seems.

    32
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Joseph Rooney
    Favourite Joseph Rooney
    Report
    Mar 15th 2018, 6:20 PM

    These people are trying to drag us into their war. If they want to stop the violence, they should call on their jihadi buddies to leave Ghouta, and to set the civilian population there free.
    I’m sick of all the chancers that have spring up–Whiite Helmets etc. A few months back I saw video of the White Helmets (they took off the helmets) cutting off the head of a Palestinian kid. I have no sympathy for them now.

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dessie Deratta
    Favourite Dessie Deratta
    Report
    Mar 16th 2018, 2:39 AM

    Goal are an extension of the US foreign policy nexus…always have been.

    3
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds