Bahrain: The Islamic State threat within | Middle East Eye
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/bahrain-islamic-state-threat-within-884335108
In the IS video, the officer is identified as Mohamed Isa al-Binali.
On 5 September, the ministry of the interior tweeted that he had been dismissed for unauthorised absences. This was nearly three months after he had gone over to the Islamic State.
The authorities should not have been surprised by his defection. His cousin Turki is a senior IS cleric who last year in an article widely distributed online called on true believers to acknowledge Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the Ieader of IS, as their caliph.
Another member of the tribe Ali Yousif al-Binali was killed fighting in Syria in May of this year.
The al-Binalis are a large and influential family with extensive commercial holdings and close ties to the al-Khalifas.
This may explain why just last year a demonstration in front of the American embassy in the capital Manama featured a hectoring Turki al-Binali with black Islamist flags fluttering prominently behind him went unchallenged by the government and the police.
The cleric has tapped into a feeling held by many in the Sunni community that they have been betrayed by the ruling family. They believe that their support for the al-Khalifas during the 2011 uprising has gone largely unrecognised and unrewarded.They think the government in making hesitant reforms has gone easy on Shia Bahrainis.
Their frustration is evident on the streets of Manama where IS flags are frequently seen flying from cars.
It is a measure of just how sensitive the issue is that the drivers are not stopped or otherwise challenged by the police.
Only last year, Major General Tariq al-Hassan, the country’s chief of public security, tweeted an image of a bullet burnished with the extremist logo together with a quote from Islam’s third caliph Omar.
The tweet was quickly taken down, but an anti-government activist who has been jailed several times and asked not to be named described the police chief as "a pragmatist [who] doesn’t support IS directly but likes to appear sympathetic because a lot [of IS supporters] are members of the police and security forces. He was trying to win allies."
The activist said that the police chief has “turned a blind eye, let them [Sunni extremists] gather, leave the country, preach, produce and distribute literature.”
And, indeed, in the heart of Manama, I have been told that at the al-Farouk bookstore it is still possible to purchase tracts by Turki al-Binali, who has been described as “the imam of the Islamic State.” The cleric left Bahrain in the summer of 2013.
In July of this year, Major General al-Hassan did warn Bahrainis not to support terror groups and vowed “zero tolerance against violations which would endanger Bahrain’s security.” But this came only after a string of tweets including some from influential politicians who viewed IS victories in Iraq not as terrorism but as part of a Sunni insurgency against a repressive Shia regime.