In a statement released online, two Iranian-backed Bahraini militias eulogized killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah while also promising to take revenge against the “criminal Zionists” for his death.
Nasrallah, the long-time leader of Hezbollah, was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 27. Since his death, a slew of Hezbollah-allied Shia militias and other armed groups from Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine have sent their condolences. The Bahrainis are just the latest to join this chorus.
The statement, co-signed by Saraya al-Ashtar and Saraya Wa’ad Allah, two of the larger Iranian-backed militias on the island kingdom, begins with saying that Nasrallah was “a witness of the weak and the oppressed and a witness of the global arrogance represented by America and the Zionists.” It continues:
[Nasrallah was] a witness to the Arab and Islamic failure, a witness to the existence of strong mujahideen in the cause of truth, and a witness to the unity of the arenas. The blood of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was shed in paving the way to Jerusalem.
In response to his killing, the two militias reaffirm that Nasrallah’s blood “must be avenged.” Speaking to supporters inside Bahrain, they state that “any Zionist present on the Islamic land of Bahrain has his blood permissible [to be killed], considering that they are fighting against God and His messengers, and you are a people resisting this cancerous existence.”
The two militias also call for mass rallies in support of Nasrallah and Lebanese Hezbollah, saying, “Let us also raise pictures of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah everywhere, decorate our villages and towns with the yellow flag [of Hezbollah], and establish his love in the conscience of our generation.”
Saraya al-Ashtar, a US-designated terrorist organization for its terrorist attacks in Bahrain and relationship with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has long threatened attacks on Israel, Zionists, and Jews more broadly.
For instance, in February 2019, al-Ashtar openly threatened attacks against Israeli targets in Bahrain. Speaking in a video, a spokesman for the group denounced the “Khalifa regime’s openness to the Zionists” and added that the “Zionist presence is a legitimate target” on the island.
Other IRGC-backed Shia militias in Bahrain have also directly threatened Israel in the past. Just two days after the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, Saraya Wa’ad Allah praised the violence and called for additional attacks on Israelis and Jews, including in Bahrain itself.
Before this, in 2020, it stated it created a dedicated sub-unit to target Israeli interests in Bahrain. It also took credit for threats against an Israeli delegation meeting with Bahraini officials in 2019.
Saraya al-Mokhtar, another US-designated terrorist group for its ties to the IRGC, has also threatened Israelis and Jews in Bahrain.
Despite all the talk, however, no Iranian-backed militia in Bahrain has actually carried through with these threats.
Both Saraya al-Ashtar and Saraya Wa’ad Allah also operate inside Iraq, where both are integrated within the structures of other so-called ‘Islamic Resistance’ groups, or Iranian-backed forces in the country. For instance, Iraq was the likely launch point for Saraya al-Ashtar’s drone it fired into Israeli territory earlier this year.
So, even though the threat in Bahrain is limited—but not zero—it also stands to reason that the two Bahraini militias will likely participate in the event of increased hostilities inside or emanating from Iraq in the wake of Nasrallah’s killing.
