Bahrain: Five Ashtar Brigades Convicts Sentenced to Life-sentence

Police and security officials stand guard at a checkpoint on a highway in Sanabis west of Manama, Bahrain on February 9, 2017. Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters
Police and security officials stand guard at a checkpoint on a highway in Sanabis west of Manama, Bahrain on February 9, 2017. Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters
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Bahrain: Five Ashtar Brigades Convicts Sentenced to Life-sentence

Police and security officials stand guard at a checkpoint on a highway in Sanabis west of Manama, Bahrain on February 9, 2017. Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters
Police and security officials stand guard at a checkpoint on a highway in Sanabis west of Manama, Bahrain on February 9, 2017. Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters

The Bahraini judiciary issued Thursday life sentences in the case of five convicts for charges of forming a terrorist cell affiliated with al-Ashtar Brigades, which is designated a terrorist by the Arab anti-terror quartet.

The sentence also targets two convicts from the same organization who were sentenced to seven years in prison.

Chief of Terror Crime Prosecution Advocate General Ahmed al-Hammadi stated that the fourth High Criminal Court awarded varying jail terms to seven terror suspects found guilty of running and joining a terrorist organization.

Hammadi added that the court sentenced the first five suspects to life in jail and handed down the sixth and seventh suspects seven-year jail terms.

The court also ordered the confiscation of the seized items. The suspects were charged with possessing and manufacturing explosives, possessing firearms and ammunition without a license, receiving training on weapons and explosive materials and funding terrorism.

Court files say the first suspect, a member of the “Al-Ashtar Brigades”, recruited the fourth suspect to commit terror crimes against Bahrain’s kingdom. He received training in 2017 with the assistance of the sixth and second suspects. The fourth suspect also recruited the fifth.

The files say Iraqi “Kataib Hezbollah” also trained the fifth suspect in 2016 to make explosive materials and devices.

The fourth suspect was instructed by the first to receive the explosive device and monitor the security patrols accompanying oil tankers to target them. The third suspect instructed the fifth to receive and transport firearms and materials for terrorist purposes.



US Aid Cuts Force UNICEF to Scale Back Lebanon Nutrition Programs

A medic from the UNICEF carries a cooler box containing polio vaccine arrives at a camp for displaced people in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on February 23, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A medic from the UNICEF carries a cooler box containing polio vaccine arrives at a camp for displaced people in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on February 23, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
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US Aid Cuts Force UNICEF to Scale Back Lebanon Nutrition Programs

A medic from the UNICEF carries a cooler box containing polio vaccine arrives at a camp for displaced people in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on February 23, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A medic from the UNICEF carries a cooler box containing polio vaccine arrives at a camp for displaced people in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on February 23, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

US aid cuts have forced the UN children's agency UNICEF to suspend or scale back many programs in Lebanon, with more than half of children under the age of two experiencing severe food poverty in the country's east, an official said on Friday.

"We have been forced to suspend or cut back or drastically reduce many of our programs and that includes nutrition programs," UNICEF's deputy representative in Lebanon, Ettie Higgins, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Beirut.