Bahrain says it seized 'explosives' from 'terrorist fugitives'

Bahrain has seized explosives and bomb-making material smuggled into the country from Iraq and intended to be used in the kingdom and in Saudi Arabia, said the interior ministry.

A statement said that an investigation indicated that the explosives had been smuggled in by two fugitive Bahraini men who live in Iran and who had been sentenced to death in "terrorist" cases.

It identified them as Murtadha Majeed Ramadhan al-Sindi, 32, and Qassem Abdullah Ali, 26.

The ministry said that Sindi collaborates with Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps and that Ali "often travels to Iraq".

"They formed and recruited a terrorist group that targets the security of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia," the statement said.

The ministry said the items seized were very powerful and "would have had the effect of detonating 222kg of TNT".

"The deadly and effective range could have reached hundreds of metres, causing multiple casualties," it said.

The explosives were seized in a house in the village of Bani Kulaib in western Bahrain, and some matched bomb-making materials seized over the past few years, including in March.

"Analysis and comparison of lab results and evidence from those previous cases pointed to Iran and Iraq as the source of the materials," the ministry said.

Tiny but strategic Bahrain has seen sporadic violence since its Sunni rulers crushed an uprising led by the Shia majority in 2011.

Protests still frequently erupt in Shia villages around the capital Manama.

Bahrain accuses Iran of interfering in its internal affairs.