(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Witnesses said on Wednesday that hundreds of regime thugs wielding knives and sticks attacked a number of villages overnight, beating residents and damaging their properties.
Some reports suggest that the attackers were responding to messages posted online to avenge a bomb attack that injured seven policemen in the area two days earlier.
Activists, however, say the bombing was orchestrated by the regime itself to justify its brutality against protest areas.
Bahrain’s largest opposition group al-Wefaq says security forces did nothing to stop the attackers, who were in civilian clothes.
"The security forces did not carry out their duty, they did not disperse the (assailants) or prevent them from attacking citizens," al-Wefaq statement said, adding that authorities must "deal with these militias."
The latest development comes amid escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf country over the deteriorating health of jailed prominent human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is on hunger strike to protest against the life sentence handed to him and Manama's ongoing crackdown on protests.
Bahrainis have held several demonstrations in support of Khawaja after he started his strike in February, urging the government to release him.
Amnesty International has also called for the ‘immediate and unconditional release’ of al-Khawaja, considering him a ‘prisoner of conscience, detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression’.
/smh