Bahrain | Pakistan

Pakistan, Bahrain to enhance cooperation in diverse sectors PM vows to further strengthen Pak-Bahrain cooperation Bahrain FM praises professionalism of Pakistan Armed Forces.

Pakistan and Bahrain have reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening trade and economic relations, with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar expressing Islamabad’s desire to take bilateral economic ties to a new level.

Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain, Dr.

In a phone call with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani congratulated Pakistan on the signing of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, the Foreign Office (FO) said on Tuesday. The joint defence agreement, signed on August 7 between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, aims to strengthen collective deterrence and empowers its signatory states to treat an attack against one of them as an attack against all of them. In a post on X, FO said that the two leaders spoke last night, during which Dar’s Bahraini counterpart congratulated him on the agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye and also expressed intentions to visit Pakistan in the near future. Dar, for his part, welcomed the Bahraini foreign minister’s desire to visit and expressed appreciation for his comments. FO said that during the call, DPM Dar “reiterated Pakistan’s firm commitment to promoting dialogue and diplomacy to achieve peace and stability in the region ...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar received a telephone call from Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani on Monday night, according to a statement issued by the Foreign Office.

The United States and Iran traded strikes on Thursday for the second day running as Washington and Tehran battled over the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The latest round of attacks, which the US said was carried out in response to Tuesday’s assault on three cargo ships transiting the strait, came hours after US President Donald Trump said he believed an interim ceasefire with Iran to be “over”. US forces said the latest attacks against Iran were aimed at “their ability to threaten the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz”, citing recent strikes against commerical ships the waterway. “This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. The US strikes rattled several cities along Iran’s southern coast and left some areas without power. The US Central Command said later they had struck approximately 90 military targets. Iran responded with a second day of attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain, both home to US mili...

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said on Wednesday they had hit dozens of US military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait in response to American strikes, in a statement carried by state broadcaster IRIB. “In an initial response to this aggression, the IRGC Navy and Aerospace Force carried out a joint missile and drone operation, striking 85 key US military facilities” in the two countries, while also shooting down an MQ-9 drone, the statement said. The statement came after the US military unleashed a new wave of strikes against Iran on Tuesday and revoked a licence allowing the country to sell oil after three tankers were hit by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz, putting pressure on an already fragile ceasefire. After a day in which huge crowds mourned Iran’s assassinated supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the holy city of Qom, US Central Command (Centcom) said it hit over 80 targets in a series of strikes intended to impose what it called “heavy costs”. The military command said it struck more than 6...

WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain this week as the Trump administration has stepped up efforts to end the war with Iran while Gulf countries remain uneasy about a proposed deal.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar held a telephone conversation with Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani to discuss the recently signed Islamabad memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran.

RAWALPINDI: The commander of Bahrain’s National Guard, General Shaikh Mohammad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, discussed the strengthening of military collaboration with Pakistan in a meeting with Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir on Tuesday. A press release issued on Tuesday by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that the Bahraini commander called on CDF Munir at General Headquarters (GHQ) Rawalpindi today, where the two discussed “matters of mutual interest, [the] regional security environment, and avenues for enhanced bilateral defence and security cooperation”. “Both dignitaries expressed satisfaction over the longstanding brotherly relations between Pakistan and Bahrain and underscored the importance of further strengthening military-to-military collaboration,” the ISPR statement said. Earlier, the commander also separately called on Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Naveed Ashraf, and Chief of the Air Staff Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu. ...

Ishaq Dar met with Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani in New York City on Wednesday, where both leaders reaffirmed the strong fraternal ties between Pakistan and Bahrain.

Five people were sentenced to life in Bahrain on Tuesday for plotting “terrorist and hostile acts” with Iran, which bombarded the tiny Gulf state during the Middle East war. Two Afghans and three Bahrainis were convicted and a fourth Bahraini was acquitted by the High Criminal Court, the public prosecution said. They were accused of monitoring and photographing “vital facilities” for Iran, it said. “The Public Prosecution affirms that the crime of communicating with hostile foreign entities against the Kingdom of Bahrain is considered one of the most serious crimes affecting national security,” the statement said. The public prosecution is considering appealing against the acquittal of the sixth defendant, it added. Iran launched waves of missile and drone strikes against Gulf states, including Bahrain, in response to US and Israeli attacks on the Islamic republic that sparked the Middle East war on February 28. Human Rights Watch last month expressed alarm over the arrests of “dozens of people” in the region...

Bahrain revoked the citizenship of 69 people over what it described as sympathy with Iran’s hostile acts and collaboration with foreign entities, the kingdom’s interior ministry said in a statement. The ministry said that the 69 people included accused individuals and their family members, and that they were all of non-Bahraini origin. “The Bahraini nationality has been revoked from those individuals for glorifying or sympathising with the hostile Iranian acts, or engaging in contacts with external parties,” the ministry said. It said the revocations had been carried out in accordance with royal directives from King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and were based on Article 10/3 of the Bahraini Nationality Law. The article provides for the revocation of citizenship in cases of “causing harm to the interests of the Kingdom or acting in a manner that contradicts the duty of loyalty to it”. The interior ministry said the competent authorities were “continuing to study and review” who deserves Bahraini citizenship. Sayed...

Pakistani Fintech company Sadapay on Tuesday said its application was unavailable for users after Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Bahrain were disrupted amid the US-Israel war on Iran. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East began with the US and Israel launching attacks on Iran, triggering a conflict that has expanded to the rest of the Middle East. As the war rages on, Gulf countries have also come under attack, including Bahrain. In a statement shared on its social media handles, the company said, “The SadaPay app is currently unavailable for all users. Our infrastructure runs on AWS in Bahrain, which has been disrupted since the drone strikes on March 1.” AWS is Amazon’s cloud ‌computing ⁠unit and is critical for the operation of many well-known websites and government operations. It is also the company’s main driver of profits. It added that overnight, “conditions in the affected AWS region worsened, causing a full app outage for our users”. As per the statement, Sadapay said that it was “dealing with the d...

An American-operated Patriot air defence battery likely fired the interceptor missile involved in a pre-dawn explosion that injured dozens of civilians and tore through homes in US-ally Bahrain 10 days into the war on Iran, according to an analysis by academic researchers examined by Reuters. Both Bahrain and Washington have blamed an Iranian drone attack for the March 9 blast, which the Gulf kingdom said injured 32 people including children, some seriously. Commenting on the day of the attack, US Central Command said on X that an Iranian drone struck a residential neighbourhood in Bahrain. In response to questions from Reuters, Bahrain on Saturday acknowledged for the first time that a Patriot missile was involved in the explosion over the Mahazza neighbourhood on Sitra island, offshore from the capital Manama and also home to an oil refinery. In a statement, a Bahraini government spokesperson said the missile successfully intercepted an Iranian drone mid-air, saving lives. The damage and injuries sustained ...

Reiterates strong condemnation of attacks carried out against Bahrain

On March 10, as the US-Israel war with Iran entered its second week, the Bahrain government announced the arrest of six persons hailing from Asian countries — five of them Pakistanis — on charges of filming, publishing and reposting “videos related to the effects of the treacherous Iranian aggression”. The Iran conflict — which broke out on February 28 after the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on the Islamic Republic and assassinated then-supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with other top security officials and hundreds of civilians — has now spiralled into a Middle East war. Today, the entire region is on fire as Tehran continues to retaliate with attacks on Israel and at least seven Gulf states, including Bahrain, which has reported intercepting 114 missiles and 190 drones since the beginning of the war. In an X post on March 8, Bahrain had issued a warning against the photographing of “vital sites and facilities” and publishing them on social media. Two days later, a statement issu...

WASHINGTON: Pakistan has outlined the rationale behind its votes on two competing draft resolutions at the United Nations Security Council, stating that both were aimed at curbing regional escalation and promoting an immediate return to dialogue. On March 11, the Security Council adopted a Bahrain-led resolution condemning recent missile and drone attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran on several Gulf states — including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan — and demanding an immediate cessation of all such attacks. Russia also presented a draft resolution on the military escalation in the Middle East at the meeting, but it was vetoed by the US. The resolution received four votes in favour — from Russia, China, Somalia, and Pakistan — while the United States and Latvia voted against it. Nine members abstained Explaining Pakistan’s vote at a Security Council meeting on the “Situation in the Middle East,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan’s Permanent Representa...

ISLAMABAD - Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Ishaq Dar spoke with Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani on Monday night and discussed the evolving situation in the region.

Bahrain’s interior ministry has said that the country’s Anti-Cyber Crime Directorate arrested six Asians, including five Pakistanis, after they “filmed, published and reposted videos related to the effects of the treacherous Iranian aggression”. This was shared in a statement on the police media centre’s website on Monday. The statement also alleged that the suspects expressed “sympathy with and glorified those hostile acts in a manner that harms security and public order”. It added that the videos in question were circulated through the suspects’ social media accounts, “contributing to misleading public opinion and spreading fear among citizens and residents”. “Legal procedures have been taken, and the suspects have been referred to the public prosecution,” the statement added. According to the information available on the website, apart from five Pakistanis, a Bangladeshi has also been arrested for the alleged offence. It said the interior ministry “also urged everyone to obtain information from official so...