A Commander of Iran's Basij force, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, has blamed the US, British and Israeli spy agencies for the "Bahraini people's agony and the suppression of their uprising against the tyrannical rule" of the al-Khalifa regime.

Iran has had frosty relations with Bahrain because of the Gulf states treatment to its majority Shi'ite population. "What has stood against the integrated campaign of the Bahraini people is not al-Khalifa and al-Saud but the US, Britain and the Zionist regime,".
"These are the US and Britain that identify the Jihadi groups by their spy networks and provide the Wahhabi torturers with (information about them)," he added. Iran feels that Bahrain's policy towards the Shi'ite population is a clear violation of human rights, accusing the USA in the past of double standards because of its relationship with the Bahraini regime whilst using a different policy with Syria.

Bahrain has been in turmoil since protests broke out in February last year.

Activists say more than 69 people have been killed so far, whilst hundreds have gone missing. Earlier this week prominent activist Nabeel Rajab was arrested by masked men and sentenced to three months imprisonment for sending what Bahraini authorities called a "malicious tweet".