VZCZCXRO7657
PP RUEHDE RUEHDH RUEHDIR
DE RUEHMK #0149 0711426
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 121426Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY MANAMA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8530
INFO RUEHZM/GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHBVAKS/COMUSNAVCENT  PRIORITY
RHMFIUU/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY

UNCLAS MANAMA 000149 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
BAGHDAD FOR AMBASSADOR ERELI 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV ASEC PHUM KISL BA
SUBJECT: HAQ SUPPORTERS TARGET SOUTH ASIANS 
 
REF: A. MANAMA 57 
     ¶B. MANAMA 50 
     ¶C. 08 MANAMA 845 
     ¶D. 08 MANAMA 593 
 
¶1. (U)  Summary: Small bands of youth  continue to skirmish 
with police in Shia villages, protesting the detention of two 
Shia Haq Movement activists.  In a new development, some of 
these youth have attacked South Asians.  End summary. 
 
¶2. (U) Over the past week, several bands of 10-20 Shia youth 
have come out every night to throw rocks and Molotov 
cocktails at police, protesting the continued detention of 
Haq activists Hassan Musheima and Mohamed Habib Maqdad. 
Usually, there are no injuries or arrests during these 
clashes, and have little effect on life in Bahrain outside 
the villages concerned. However, during this week's 
disturbances four south Asians were attacked in separate 
incidents in the Shia vllages of Ma'ameer, Bani Jamrah, and 
Daih.  In te most serious of these, masked youth in Ma'ameer 
threw a Molotov cocktail at a vehicle and set it blaze.  The 
Pakistani driver suffered burns over forty percent of his 
body and is in critical condtion.  Two men have been 
arrested in connection ith the attack.  In Bani Jamrah, 
several youth beat two south Asian passers-by, while in Daih 
attackers singled out a south Asian food deliveryman. 
 
¶3. (U) One local paper reported that the Pakistani victim in 
Ma'ameer was a plain-clothes policeman, then retracted the 
report after a pointed denial from the Ministry of Interior. 
Shia contacts speculate that the attackers believed that the 
victim was an undercover policeman, or at least connected to 
the security apparatus, and so targeted him specifically. 
The Bani Jamrah and Daih attacks appear to have been 
ethnically motivated.  Temporary foreign workers constitute 
half of Bahrain's population; most of these foreigners are 
from south Asia.  Most of the riot police with whom radical 
youth fight on weekends are Pakistanis. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Wifaq, the mainstream Shia opposition party, has 
condemned the attacks, noting that Islam forbids attacking 
"outsiders" in the community.  At the same time, Wifaq 
opposes what it claims is a government program to recruit and 
naturalize Sunnis from abroad. 
 
 
 
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Visit Embassy Manama's Classified Website: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/manama/ 
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HENZEL