Bahrain's king said a foreign plot against his Sunni-led island state had been foiled, and the head of the Gulf Co-operation Council warned that interference by Shia Iran in the Gulf Arab states would not be tolerated. Confrontation between Sunnis and Shias has stirred international tension in the oil-exporting region, gripped by its worst unrest in years.
"An external plot has been fomented for 20 to 30 years until the ground was ripe for subversive designs... I here announce the failure of the plot," King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa was quoted as telling troops in a report by state news agency BNA. Had the plot succeeded, he said, it could have spilled into neighbouring states.
The king thanked troops brought in from fellow Sunni-ruled neighbours to help quell weeks of protests by mainly Shia Bahrainis calling for political reform. Around 1,000 Saudi soldiers and 500 police officers from the United Arab Emirates entered Bahrain to protect government facilities during the unrest.
Kuwaiti naval vessels arrived in Bahrain on Monday to help protect its waters as part of a Gulf defence pact, Bahrain's state news agency said. It give no details. Bahrain is the base for the US Fifth Fleet, central to US military power in the oil-rich region.
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