Bahrain Uncovers Cyber Network to Destabilize Its Security

Bahrain Uncovers Cyber Network to Destabilize Its Security
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Bahrain Uncovers Cyber Network to Destabilize Its Security

Bahrain Uncovers Cyber Network to Destabilize Its Security

Bahraini authorities said Monday they have tracked a network of destabilizing electronic accounts operated in several countries and targeting its security.

It said the accounts are run from Qatar, Iran, Iraq, and a number of European countries.

The network, run by wanted fugitives, is implementing a “systematic plan” to harm Bahrain’s image and its people.

It was established by Yousuf al-Muhafaza and Hassan Abdulnaby, who reside in Germany and Australia.

Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa ordered concerned security bodies to follow up the case and put an end to it.

“We are fully convinced that our vivacious national fabric is our first line of defense for the cohesion of our internal front, thanks to its steadfast ability to repel all forms of violence and extremism and thwart any attempts to provoke strife by staying away from the misuse of social media,” the King said.

He stressed that social media should be used for the good of the country and its people and must be a tool for construction, not destruction.

“We have directed in this regard the competent security services to put a strict end to this misuse since there is no place among us for those who break the law.”

Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa stressed Monday that he will deal firmly with all what stirs sedition and strife.

He strongly condemned the misguided attempts by some websites and electronic accounts in social media to incite sedition via accounts and tweets aimed at undermining the firmness of the social fabric.

He said these acts are plotted by enemies inside and abroad, praising the efforts exerted by the cohesive Bahraini society in thwarting these biased schemes.

Prince Khalifa also stressed that the ministry of interior is intensively handling and intensifying monitoring and follow-up and resolute and deterrent measures that ensure limiting e-accounts that are harmful to Bahraini social security and prevent them from continuing to achieve their malicious targets.



Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
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Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Friday that more than two million Syrian refugees and internally displaced people have returned home since the fall of the government of Bashar al-Assad in December.

Speaking during a visit to Damascus that coincided with World Refugee Day, Grandi described the situation in Syria as “fragile and hopeful” and warned that the returnees may not remain if Syria does not get more international assistance to rebuild its war-battered infrastructure.

“How can we make sure that the return of the Syrian displaced or refugees is sustainable, that people don’t move again because they don’t have a house or they don’t have a job or they don’t have electricity?” Grandi asked a small group of journalists after the visit, during which he met with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and spoke with returning refugees.

“What is needed for people to return, electricity but also schools, also health centers, also safety and security,” he said.

Syria’s near 14-year civil war, which ended last December with the ouster of Assad in a lightning opposition offensive, killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.

Grandi said that 600,000 Syrians have returned to the country since Assad’s fall, and about another 1.5 million internally displaced people returned to their homes in the same period.

However, there is little aid available for the returnees, with multiple crises in the region -- including the new Israel-Iran war -- and shrinking support from donors. The UNHCR has reduced programs for Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, including healthcare, education and cash support for hundreds of thousands in Lebanon.

“The United States suspended all foreign assistance, and we were very much impacted, like others, and also other donors in Europe are reducing foreign assistance,” Grandi said, adding: “I tell the Europeans in particular, be careful. Remember 2015, 2016 when they cut food assistance to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, the Syrians moved toward Europe.”

Some have also fled for security reasons since Assad's fall. While the situation has stabilized since then, particularly in Damascus, the new government has struggled to extend its control over all areas of the country and to bring a patchwork of former opposition groups together into a national army.

Grandi said the UNHCR has been in talks with the Lebanese government, which halted official registration of new refugees in 2015, to register the new refugees and “provide them with basic assistance.”

“This is a complex community, of course, for whom the chances of return are not so strong right now,” he said. He said he had urged the Syrian authorities to make sure that measures taken in response to the attacks on civilians “are very strong and to prevent further episodes of violence.”

The Israel-Iran war has thrown further fuel on the flames in a region already dealing with multiple crises. Grandi noted that Iran is hosting millions of refugees from Afghanistan who may now be displaced again.

The UN does not yet have a sense of how many people have fled the conflict between Iran and Israel, he said.

“We know that some Iranians have gone to neighboring countries, like Azerbaijan or Armenia, but we have very little information. No country has asked for help yet,” he said. “And we have very little sense of the internal displacement, because my colleagues who are in Iran - they’re working out of bunkers because of the bombs.”