Weekly Event (Friday – 4 February 2026):
The Gulf in the Grip of the Americans… Why Is the Bahraini Authority Launching New Waves of Repression?
On 4 February 2026, the Minister of Interior, Rashid Al Khalifa, attended the closing ceremony of the Gulf security exercise “Gulf Security-4” in Qatar. This exercise took place amid an atmosphere of U.S. threats of aggression against Iran. The Bahraini authority was keen to exploit this event in support of its inciting narrative that justifies such aggression.
Bahrain organized the first edition of the “Gulf Security” exercise in 2016, in implementation of a decision by the Ministers of Interior of the Gulf states. Subsequent editions were held in 2020 in Abu Dhabi, followed by the penultimate edition in 2022 in Riyadh.
In the most recent Doha edition, the United States played a central role through the participation of specialized security units, particularly in the field of border protection.
According to informed sources, the participating Gulf security units specialized in internal security fields, including crowd control and the dispersal of gatherings.
The exercise lasted for more than ten days and included over seventy field training scenarios, focusing on simulations of diverse security incidents linked to the context of regional fallout from the unrest witnessed in Iran and the U.S. threat of military aggression.
Why Does the Al Khalifa Government Focus on Organizing Military and Security Drills?
The Bahraini authority places significant importance on organizing military and security drills, especially when it senses the risk of internal crises erupting amid regional tensions.
The organization of the first “Gulf Security” exercise in Bahrain in 2016 was no coincidence. At that time, the authority launched its most severe security campaigns against the popular protests that began in 2011, resulting in widespread targeting of religious and political leaders of the movement.
The Al Khalifa ruling family seeks to use joint security exercises as a means to warn citizens against organizing any opposition movement to the regime’s policies, which are complicit with the Americans and Zionists.
Activists affirm that the recent campaign targeting religious rituals and the wave of arrests comes within the framework of exploiting these security exercises domestically, particularly as the authority amplifies this atmosphere through related official celebrations, such as commemorating the 58th anniversary of the establishment of the so-called Bahrain Defence Force.
