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Monday, July 20, 2026
[Salon] Are the Huthis on the warpath? - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Are the Huthis on the warpath?
Summary: escalation in the war between the US and Iran is set against a developing and dangerous situation in Yemen with the outlook for a return to full scale war there a growing possibility.
We thank Helen Lackner for today’s article. An expert on Yemen, Helen also works as a freelance rural development consultant with a particular interest in water, among other environmental issues. SAQI Books has published the paperback edition with new material of her Yemen In Crisis, now subtitled Devastating Conflict, Fragile Hope. It is a seminal study of the war: what lies behind it and what needs to happen for it to finally end. Her latest book is Yemen: Poverty and Conflict published by Routledge. You can find Helen’s most recent Arab Digest podcast A black eye in Yemen for the UAE here.
Worrying developments are taking place in Yemen. With the renewal of the Strait of Hormuz Iran-US fighting and Iranian threats to also close the Bab al Mandab, the situation in Yemen is ominous, beyond the issue of the Huthis joining Iran by relaunching attacks in the Red Sea. Numerous tensions are worsening, suggesting that ‘no war no peace’ status prevailing since 2022 is no longer sustainable.
Military aspects
Following years of regular ongoing low-level clashes, in recent weeks both the internationally recognised government [IRG] and the Huthis have been mobilising forces far more aggressively than at any time since the 2022 truce, sending reinforcements to all fronts. Noticeably more serious clashes took place in the southern Tihama in the first week of July, causing dozens of casualties on both sides.
The Huthis have also created a new force modelled on the Iranian Basij militia, the ‘Mobilisation Forces, a parallel structure designed to organise recruitment and maintain combat readiness outside its conventional military formations’.
On the IRG side, since the exclusion of the Southern Transitional Council [STC] from the Presidential Leadership Council [PLC] in January, and the formation of the new government, the IRG in association with Saudi military advisors has been involved in restructuring the military, appointing new leaderships, moving units around the country and holding meetings of senior military leaders. The IRG’s military chief of staff claimed in mid-July that 80 percent of the restructuring has been achieved. These moves alongside a series of government instructions ordering increased military readiness also suggest preparations for possible hostilities.
Fighting has not broken out in Marib, but a major tribal mobilisation in neighbouring Jawf is also cause for concern should this tribal assembly be supported by the Saudis and/or the IRG to support an offensive against the Huthis. However, regardless of these moves, IRG forces are still insufficiently coordinated and organised to be effective against the Huthis.
On the warpath: Yemen's uneasy truce is pushed to the brink as aggressive troop mobilisations ramp up on all sides.
Iranian civilian flights to Huthi controlled Yemen
For the first time in a decade, at least one Iranian plane landed in Sana’a airport, supposedly to evacuate medical cases though few were noticed. It did convey a large Huthi delegation to Tehran for the funeral of Supreme Leader Khamenei. The flight caused outrage in the IRG who denounced the “flagrant violation of the Yemeni republic’s sovereignty… undermining of international laws and United Nations Security Council resolutions… a dangerous threat to Yemeni and regional security.” Apparently Saudi air force planes attempted to prevent its landing leading to further threats from the Huthis. The IRG called for a meeting of the UNSC on Monday 13 July which condemned the flights and expressed support for the IRG. It took place within hours of the return flight which landed in Hodeida after the IRG used drones to make the runway at Sana’a airport inoperative. In response the Huthis launched drones and missiles against the southern Saudi airport of Abha; there has been no retaliation from Saudi Arabia to date.
Huthi discourse describes these flights as integral to ending the blockades on the areas under their control. A further Iranian flight on 18 July was forced to turn back after the IRG forbade its travel in Yemeni airspace. Focus on access to Sana’a airport is now a significant point of conflict. In a possible solution, welcomed by the UN Special envoy, Jordan announced an agreement to resume flights between Sana’a and Amman, a move supported by the Saudis and the international community.
Threatening Saudi Arabia
The Huthis have been making unusually aggressive threats against Saudi Arabia. While in Tehran, a senior leader, Mohammed al Bukhaiti revised the usual Huthi rhetoric which describes the IRG as Saudi mercenaries replacing it with overt threats of bringing the fight directly against the Saudis. He said they would not attack Yemeni forces provided they did not get involved. His suggestion that the STC might support the Huthis is confirmed by the STC statement that ‘the Southern Armed Forces Command categorically denies issuing any statement regarding participation in any military operations against the Houthi militia.’
In his 16 July weekly television address, Supreme Huthi leader Abdul Malik al Huthi’s hostility against Saudi Arabia was unprecedented. In addition to usual themes, e.g. US and Israeli aggression against Gaza, he emphasised Yemen’s independence, rejecting the Saudi blockade and its influence over Yemen, asserting that renewed military action would be responded with like for like: ‘The equation is airports for airports, ports for ports, and blockade for blockade… It has become clear that we will never accept the humiliation of our people, their enslavement, or the continuation of this suffering, injustice and oppression against our people.’
This rhetorical escalation reflects Huthi urgency. It has been clear for years that both the Huthis and the Saudi regime want to reach an agreement. However the intensification of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran has worsened the situation in two main ways: first the Saudis cannot reach an agreement with the explicitly Iran-aligned Huthis as this would effectively be interpreted as openly joining the conflict on the side of Iran. Second, the renewal of attacks in Hormuz has led to a recent Iranian threat to expand the conflict by getting the Huthis to close access to the Red Sea. It would be difficult for the Huthis to ignore such a request, despite their primary concern of reducing domestic economic difficulties through an agreement which would bring Saudi finance. The focus on Sana’a airport both addresses some social tensions and distracts from the disastrous humanitarian situation.
Among the current unlikely convergences and rivalries are both a Saudi-Huthi agreement and a STC/Emirati covert alliance with the Huthis. Both would demonstrate the rival Saudis and Emiratis aligning with Iran in the current war!
In summary, escalation and a return to full scale fighting in Yemen is more likely today than it has been since the 2022 truce. However there are good reasons to believe that it might not happen. On the IRG side, military restructuring and consolidation are not yet likely to ensure victory in a full-scale confrontation against the Huthis. Saudi Arabia must take many aspects in consideration [see our posting of 21 May], not least possible Huthi attacks on its Red Sea ports, oil and other economic facilities. The fact that Iran has only rarely attacked Saudi Arabia is notable. For the Huthis, returning to full scale fighting and attacks on the Red Sea would almost certainly lead to US and Saudi air strikes, worsening the political and economic crisis suffered by the people under their rule. Although close to Iran, retaining an agreement with Saudi Arabia is probably more important for the Huthis, given the immediate and direct benefits it would produce.
Sunday, July 19, 2026
A Modest Proposal for the Strait Dispute: A Shared Pact Among Gulf States - The New York Times
A Modest Proposal for the Strait Dispute: A Shared Pact Among Gulf States - The New York Times
FM: John Whitbeck
At a time when humanity is being held hostage by the diametrically opposed positions of Iran and the United States regarding "control" of the Strait of Hormuz, transmitted below is a report on a proposal currently being floated that offers a potentially viable alternative to a global depression and/or a nuclear-bomb-generated "win" for Donald Trump.
Of course, Israel would be fiercely opposed to any peace settlement which permitted not only Iran's survival but also correct and cooperative relations between Iran and Gulf states which Israel has been seeking, with some success, to coopt into subservience to its regional hegemony, and it would be astonishing if Donald Trump were ever to choose to put the interests of the American people and the world ahead of Israeli desires.
Nevertheless, this proposal, which would require the leaders of Gulf countries to ignore the wishes of Israel and the United States in favor of the interests of their own countries and people, does offer a glimmer of hope.
NOTE: I hope that I am not alone in finding it remarkable that the U.S. government, which launched its latest criminal war of aggression by assassinating Iran's leader and most of his family and slaughtering some 160 schoolgirls, deems the deaths during Iranian retaliation against its latest war crimes of two of its "service members", who, after all, have volunteered to serve as professional killers in an army of aggression, as an outrage justifying further "punishment" of Iran.
The deaths of soldiers in wars, even justified wars, used to be deemed an inevitable and acceptable aspect of wars.
Saturday, July 18, 2026
[Salon] The US ran Democratization Programs; Does it need one Itself? - Guest Post by Alex Poppe
The US ran Democratization Programs; Does it need one Itself?
Alex Poppe 07/18/2026
Tulsa, OK (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Former USAID Administrator Samantha Power established the Democracy Delivers Initiative to support emerging democracies. When a reformer was elected to office, Democracy Delivers surged attention, support, and resources to that reformer so he/she could deliver economic and social benefits to voters. When voters experienced how their lives were better under a democratic system, the hope was they would continue to vote for reformers as the difficult process of political and economic reform took place.
I served as the strategic communications advisor for this initiative. The inaugural cohort contained nine countries, grouped geographically: Armenia, Moldova, Maldives, Nepal, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic. During my tenure, Fiji and Guatemala joined the initiative while Tanzania was stripped of its Democracy Delivers designation. Although I did not set the criteria or adjudicate which countries were included, I did participate in the decision-making to remove Tanzania from the initiative due to its repression of human rights and government-sponsored violent crackdown on political opposition before elections.
Fiji was invited to join the Democracy Delivers Initiative due to its historic peaceful transition of power following its national elections. I used to mentally compare Fiji’s transition of power to the January 6th attacks on the US Capitol and wonder if the United States would qualify as a Democracy Delivers country if it were under consideration. Almost 18 months into President Trump’s second term, a term characterized by corruption, attacks on the free press, and moves to limit free and fair elections, I doubt the United States would be a Democracy Delivers contender.
Much of the corruption characterizing the present administration centers in the executive branch. Senator Chris Murphy detailed President Trump’s corruption on the Senate floor in June 2026. His examples illustrate how the president, his family, and members of his administration have used their positions of power to enrich themselves and do favor for the wealthy friends. The president’s dealings in crypto currency, from which he made $1.4 billiondollars during his first year in office, are illustrative. His acting Attorney General Todd Blanche terminated several DOJ investigations (started under the previous administration) into crypto companies. Then the acting AG got rid of the entire DOJ enforcement team working to root out crypto-related fraud and money-laundering schemes. Acting AG Blanche is a major investor in crypto companies, and his boss, the president, is a major player in the industry, owning several crypto companies. One company the president and his family own issues several crypto coins with no transparency about who buys them. Rather, the president promotes them and invites people to events to purchase them. As of September 2025, the president made $57 million selling crypto tokens to entities with ties to North Korea, Iran, and Russia. One month later, the president pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who helped the president set up his crypto business.
The Trump administration used high-level diplomatic pressure, including a phone call from President Trump to the president of Kazakhstan, to help Vulcan Elements, now part of Kaz Resources, lock up access to an $80 billion tungsten deposit in Kazakhstan. Within weeks of that meeting, which was not publicly announced, President Trump’s two oldest sons became investors in the same company while the federal government was simultaneously preparing to put $1.6 billion behind the deal. Vulcan was worth $200 million before the deal. After Donald Trump Jr. became an investor, the Pentagon took a $50 million stake in Vulcan Elements and gave Vulcan Elements a $620 million taxpayer funded loan. After the deal, Vulcan Elements became worth $2 billion.
Contract awards are another area rife with corruption under the present administration. Steven Miller, who oversees ICE, owns up to a quarter of a million dollars in Palantir stock. Right before his holdings became public, the administration awarded Palantir a $30 million contract to provide real time surveillance information to ICE officers, but there had not been a competitive bidding process for that contract. Atlantic Industrial coatings won a $13.1 million no-bid contract, which later grew to $14.6 million, to renovate the reflecting pool. Atlantic Industrial Coatings had no prior experience in federal construction. Similarly, the administration secretly awarded a no-bid $500 million contract to Clark Construction for the East Wing ballroom project. Additionally, over half of the publicly-identified people who donated to the president’s White House ballroom project have received new or expanded federal contracts worth $50 billion in total.
The free press has suffered under President Trump’s administration. Recently, the DOJ issued subpoenas to New York Times reporters who reported on the new Air Force One’s security concerns. The government is trying to force reporters to disclose sources in an effort to intimidate news organizations and make sources more reluctant to report misconduct. Although the plane was a gift from the Qatar government, American tax payers have spent $400 million to retrofit and upgrade it. Addressing the security concerns reported by the New York Times could cost tax payers up to $1 billion.
In addition to the DOJ-issued subpoenas, the FBI raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, seizing all her devices during an investigation into leaked government documents. The administration has restricted press access to the Pentagon after some news organizations refused to sign a policy restricting reporters from gathering unauthorized information. According to Politico, the Pentagon press office is now considered classified and therefore off limits to reporters. The FCC has explored revoking broadcasting licenses for networks that aired programming critical of the president. Likewise, the administration pushed to strip federal funding from NPR and PBS, which some media outlets have declared as politically motivated.
From pardoning the January 6th rioters to having election deniers sworn in as the attorney general and the FBI director to threatening 2020 election officials with prosecution, President Trump has been trying to undermine free and fair elections since he returned to office. His tactics to influence the upcoming mid-term elections include increasing voting restrictions, pushing for redistricting mid-decade, gutting election security infrastructure, questioning previous election results to undermine public trust in the electoral process, punishing those who have combatted election denialism, and trying to nationalize elections. According to the US Constitution, Congress has the ability to pass federal election legislation while states control their elections.
Photo of Brussels sign by Francesco Tarini on Unsplash
The president is pressuring Congress pass the SAVE America Act, which would disenfranchise voters. According to the Brennan Center, the SAVE America Act would require people to show a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. Many people register to vote online, especially in rural areas. Others register to vote through voter drive campaigns or civic outreach when they don’t have their passport or birth certificate on them. Many Americans don’t have a passport, which is expensive to obtain, or easy access to their birth certificate. Married women who have taken their husband’s last name will face potential obstacles if their birth certificates and passports do not list their married names (an impossibility on a birth certificate). The SAVE America Act empowers local officials to decide if a person has done enough to prove citizenship if they do not have a specified document, but officials can face civil or criminal penalties if they fail to collect the necessary paperwork. The SAVE America Act also requires states to give their voter rolls to DHS. Finally, the SAVE America Act requires a photo ID to vote, but school IDs are not acceptable nor are tribal IDs unless they have an expiration date, which many do not contain.
For American democracy to recover, we need to elect reformers to office at the local, state, and federal levels. Since there is no more Democracy Delivers, it is up to us to mobilize attention, support, and resources to the leaders who make decisions to better the country and its citizens instead of enriching themselves.
Friday, July 17, 2026
Thursday, July 16, 2026
Euro elites fiddling while Paris burns Finian Cunningham, July 14, 2026 Guest Post
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/07/14/euro-elites-fiddling-while-paris-burns/
Euro elites fiddling while Paris burns
Finian Cunningham, July 14, 2026
The ironic symbolism of this year’s Bastille Day military parade was as rich as a French gateau, although the taste was rancid.
On the day that France celebrates the 1789 revolution, overthrowing a despised monarch, French President Emmanuel Macron was joined by an array of deeply unpopular European leaders to view a military parade that was meant to symbolize “unity and strength” against Russia.
European support for Ukraine was billed as the main motif of this year’s Bastille Day. The Kiev regime’s unelected leader, Vladimir Zelensky, was sitting alongside Macron and 30 other European heads of state to watch Ukrainian troops march down the Champs-Élysées with French and other European soldiers.
This is the same Ukrainian military that honors World War Two Nazi leaders. Among the dignitaries in Paris this week was Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country suffered genocide by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. Tusk must have the moral spine of a jellyfish.
French media hailed Bastille Day as a “wartime parade.” Media pundits talked about European readiness for war with Russia. The event was reckoned to be the largest military display to mark July 14. What was particularly distinctive this year was the involvement of the militaries from across Europe. The optics and declarations of “power” and shared purpose were rife with chauvinism and provocation to Russia. Bastille Day has transmogrified into a war plan for Europe.
This is no longer about celebrating revolution, democracy, or liberation (it hasn’t been for decades). More than ever, it is a rallying call for fascist control of society and militarism to subjugate democracy for an unfolding war. If ever a real Bastille Day uprising was needed, it is now.
Overhead, fighter jets from 11 European countries flew in formation. Among the aerial displays were warplanes from Germany’s Luftwaffe. Eighty-six years ago, Nazi Germany goose-stepped down the same iconic French avenue to the Arc de Triomphe.
Meanwhile, a monster forest fire was raging south of Paris amid thousands of deaths in France and across Europe over recent weeks from blistering heatwaves. Talk about Nero fiddling while Rome burns.
Macron said the Bastille Day parade was to showcase European support for Ukraine in the nearly five-year NATO proxy war against Russia. The assembly of European leaders in Paris, including Britain’s outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, was also a show of coherent strategic unity against Russia.
The so-called Coalition of the Willing led by France and Britain announced the creation of an “anti-ballistic missile defense system” for Ukraine and Europe. Among the participants are Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, as well as France, Britain, and Ukraine.
As part of this joint rearmament plan, Ukraine struck a deal this week to buy 16 French-made Rafale fighter jets. It intends to buy a total of 100 Rafales. At €100 million per aircraft, that works out at around €16 bn. A similar number has been signed for Swedish Gripen fighter jets.
The rearmament plan also includes supplying the Franco-Italian new-generation SAMP/T air defense batteries, as well as licenses for Ukraine and its European allies to manufacture Scalp cruise missiles and the U.S.-made Patriot air-defense system.
Britain is getting in on the act, with London announcing that it is going to contribute to the €90 bn loan that the European Union is providing Ukraine, most of which is for military purchases. That will mean sales deals for Britain’s BAE Systems and other companies. This is not a free loan supposedly to help defend Ukraine from Russia’s air strikes. It is primarily a gargantuan racket of European taxpayers funding the subsidies to the military-industrial complex.
Russia denounced the turbo-charged Coalition of the Willing as a coalition of warmongers whose purpose is to ensure the biggest war in Europe since the Second World War is set to continue for years to come.
The organizing slogan in Paris this week was “Determined to Act.” More accurately, it should have been “Determined to Agitate” for a full-scale war with Russia.
The militarism across Europe by warmongering elites is throwing trillions of Euros to try to salvage their bankrupt economies with massive injections of capital into military industries and reordering the public infrastructure around military objectives. European civil society is being crushed by this out-of-control militarism, which is rationalized by scapegoating Russia as an existential threat. Diplomacy to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, with its historical roots in NATO expansionism, is non-existent because European elites are diseased with Russophobia and political bankruptcy.
Perhaps nothing speaks more graphically than the fires raging across Europe and tens of thousands of deaths from extreme heat, while elitist rulers choose to waste resources on a futile proxy war against Russia.
Macron, Britain’s Starmer, Germany’s Chancellor Merz, Italy’s PM Meloni, the unelected EU top bureaucrat Ursula von der Leyen, NATO’s Mark Rutte, and so on – they are all increasingly held in contempt by their citizens as effete elitists who are driving Europe to a conflagration with no democratic mandate. Is that not fascism? And to boot, they are aligned with a corrupt dictator in Kiev who refuses to hold elections and press-gangs civilians for slaughter.
With his typical puffed-up buffoonery, Macron declared that the Bastille Day parade is a show of unity and strength. There is no strength in Europe, only abject delusions of grandeur. That weakness, however, makes for extremely dangerous decisions.
The only “unity” on display in Paris was the closing of ranks by despicable elites who are tempting fate with war or revolution because they’re fiddling while Europe burns.
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Guest Post
A Chicago novelist, John Powers, once wrote a book with the unusual title, “The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice Cream God.” In the novel, a young man named Tim Conroy struggles with the challenge of growing up and living his faith. At one point, Tim says to a friend, “I come from a family of practicing Catholics. But the more I practice, the worse I get.”
Many of us can relate to that feeling. Perhaps we are not getting worse, but we sometimes wonder why we are not growing more than we are. Think about it: by the time most Catholics reach the age of 25, we have heard Scripture proclaimed and explained thousands of times. We have attended Mass, listened to homilies, prayed prayers, and received the sacraments. So why do we still struggle so much?
The answer may be found in today’s Gospel and the parable of the sower. The farmer is Jesus. The seed is the Word of God. The different kinds of soil represent the hearts of those who hear that Word.
What is striking is that only one group rejects the seed immediately. In the other cases, the seed is received with joy. The problem is not hearing God’s Word. The problem is allowing it to take root deeply enough to change us.
There are three steps to responding to God’s Word.
First, we must hear it. That means listening attentively to Scripture when it is proclaimed and explained.
Second, we must treasure it. Take time to reflect on it, allowing it to move from your ears into your hearts. Ask yourselves: “What is God saying to me through this passage?”
Third, we must put it into practice. Faith cannot remain only an idea or a feeling. It must shape the way we live, the way we speak, the way we forgive and the way we love.
A story about a man named Bill illustrates this beautifully. Bill was a contractor whose life slowly unraveled under pressure and addiction. Alcohol consumed him. His family broke apart, and eventually his business collapsed.
One day, while walking down the street, Bill noticed a bent, rusty nail lying on the ground. As he picked it up, he thought to himself, “That nail is just like me – bent out of shape, rusted over and thrown away.”
When he got home, he hammered the nail straight. Then he sanded away the rust until it looked new again. Holding it beside a brand-new nail, he could hardly tell the difference.
At that moment, something stirred within him. If a bent nail could be restored, perhaps his life could be restored, too.
That realization changed him. Slowly and painfully, Bill began rebuilding his life. He sought help, reunited with his family and eventually returned to work.
Bill’s story mirrors the three steps of discipleship. First, he recognized himself in the nail. Second, he reflected on what restoration could mean. Finally, he acted. He changed his life.
That is exactly what Jesus asks of us in today’s Gospel – not simply to hear the Word, but to let it change us. The seed of God’s Word is constantly being planted in our hearts. The question is whether we will allow it to bear fruit.
If we sometimes feel like Tim Conroy and wonder why we are not better disciples, perhaps it is not because we have failed to hear God’s Word, but because we have not fully embraced it in mind, heart and action.
Today, Jesus invites us to become good soil – to receive His Word, treasure it and put it into practice. For when we do, even hearts that feel bent or broken can be made new again.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Tuesday, July 14, 2026
Monday, July 13, 2026
[Salon] Ashura Protests and Arrests Reflect Bahrain’s Damaged Civil Peace - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Ashura Protests and Arrests Reflect Bahrain’s Damaged Civil Peace
Summary: as the war in Iran again heats up the repression of Bahrain’s majority Shi’a community has intensified.
We thank Andrew McIntosh for today’s newsletter. Andrew is the Director of Research at the NGO SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights. His specialty fields are media analysis, sectarianism and statelessness in Bahrain, Kuwait and Syria.
With the onset of the war between Israel, the US and Iran and Iranian strikes on Bahrain, high tensions between some Shi’a Bahrainis and the Sunni monarchy have manifested as a crackdown on all forms of dissent, both real and perceived. Limitations have been placed on rituals, processions, and clerics and participants have been summoned and arrested by security forces. Recent Ashura commemorations were subjected to wide-scale securitisation by the authorities.
While protests from Bahraini Shi’a, who are often marginalised in Bahraini society, are not new, causes such as opposition to normalisation with Israel and anger over Bahraini involvement in the war with Iran have galvanised segments of the Shi’a population, which the government regards as a threat. The result has been further polarisation, where members of the opposition have decried security actions as a state-sponsored “War on the Shia” while pro-government influencers accuse activists of being treasonous and aligned with “foreign powers”.
An Iranian newspaper with a front page photo of the Bahraini dictator King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa and others, along with the words of the Leader of the Iranian Islamic Revolution: "The inevitable revenge against the criminals."
Acts of suppression and protests by Shi’a are more overt in 2026, following an established pattern of constraints on Ashura in Bahrain. These events are monitored and policed by authorities, as Shi’a have become politicised over the past six years. Increasingly harsh, sectarian regulations from the government, as well as defiance from protesters, some of whom have gravitated increasingly towards support for Iran and the Axis of Resistance, have further enflamed tensions between communities in Bahrain.
Ashura has historically served as a focal point for sectarian tensions in Bahrain. For the Shi’a population, the advent is a time of mourning, where Hussein Ibn Ali, the third Shi’a imam and grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was killed at the Battle of Karbala in 680, is commemorated. It involves large processions, battle re-enactments and religious sermons. Often framed as an event of sacrifice, injustice, and resistance to tyranny, it has the potential to galvanise Shi’a crowds around political issues.
Since 2011, Ashura commemorations in Bahrain have been subject to robust restrictions, with the government fearful of crowds coalescing into a powerful protest movement, like the one violently suppressed during the Arab Spring. These have manifested as prohibitions on where crowds can gather and partake in rituals, as well as the surreptitious removal of religious banners and the closure of Shi’a mosques.
Since the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023, Shi’a events, including Ashura, have become more overtly political, with imams and reciters publicly criticising the Bahraini government for normalising relations with Israel via the Abraham Accords and often being arrested afterwards. In 2024, Imam al-Siddiq Mosque, the largest Shi’a house of worship in Bahrain and a site of repeated anti-normalisation protests, was forcefully shuttered by authorities, who violently clashed with local worshippers.
In 2024 and 2025, this resulted in an unprecedented number of Shi’a clerics and reciters being summoned for interrogation or arrested by security forces during Ashura. By 2025, it had become commonplace for a religious figure to publicly condemn normalisation at Ashura, only to be arrested 24-48 hours later.
In 2026, Ashura restrictions have increased dramatically, in the wake of a securitised campaign against dissent following what the Ministry of Interior has called “exceptional circumstances” of continued Iranian attacks on Bahrain. The subsequent crackdown has targeted all forms of dissent. Security forces have arrested individuals for posting footage of Iranian drone strikes, criticising the Bahraini or US government, or expressing sympathy for Ayatollah Khamenei after his death. In March, one individual died in Bahraini custody, having been severely tortured.
Although the campaign is far-reaching, Bahrain’s Shi’a communities, of whom an estimated 52% regarded Iran as a friendly country before the war, have been disproportionately targeted by security forces and cast as “traitors to the homeland” or of “non-Bahraini origin.” Vigilant of any public dissent or unrest, and claiming Iran is weaponising Shi’a grievances, the Bahraini government has imposed the harshest curbs on Ashura celebrations in its history, in line with a systematic security campaign against anyone the state associates with Iran.
Over the past two months, over 50 Shia clerics and preachers were arrested in a series of night raids. The Bahraini Ministry of Interior announced that the clerics were detained for “sympathy with Iranian attacks”, "contact with foreign entities” and “having links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.” The names and photos of those arrested were shared on social media by authorities.
In the wake of the arrest campaign, numerous Shia clerics and activists were barred from participating in Ashura activities or have reported facing intimidation by security forces, telling them not to take part. There has also been increased monitoring of sermons and displayed religious symbols, with warnings from authorities against discussing topics considered a “politicisation of Ashura.”
Bahraini authorities have decreed that Ashura’s 10-day observance be halved this year. It has banned travel to and from Iraq and Iran, common sites of pilgrimage for Ashura, and restricted processions, which typically last until dawn, to 2 am in the capital, Manama, and 12 am in the countryside. Processions can only be led by registered, pre-vetted Shi’a clerics, with gatherings departing from mosques or operating outside the framework established by the authorities strictly prohibited. Moreover, the Ministry of Interior instructed worshippers to refrain from “raising of flags and chanting of slogans linked to regional organisations and agendas.”
Angered and defiant, many Bahraini civilians have engaged in civil disobedience by violating these regulations. This has included engaging in unauthorised processions, remaining in gatherings past curfew and praying outside permitted areas. The result has been a renewed campaign of mass arrests. In June, 130 Bahrainis, including organisers of religious events, were detained on the grounds of political activity, including “unauthorised” participation in Ashura. Some arrests appear to be sectarian and politicised in nature, such as those of clerics and laymen for reading Shi’a texts authorities consider politicised, such as the Ziyarat of Imam Hussein, or for wearing t-shirts with the image of Qassem Soleimani the IRGC chief assassinated by the US in 2020.
Hardening positions from the Bahraini authorities and those who oppose the crackdowns is indicative of the country’s sectarian and political impasse, with both sides regarding the other as untrustworthy. While the government and their supporters feel justified in suppressing expression and peaceful assembly to prevent the potential weaponisation of events by a hostile neighbour, for many Bahraini Shi’a, these measures are taken as proof of the government’s sectarianism, with opposition groups framing events as an attack on their religious identity and depicting unauthorised Shia gatherings as a form of resistance and praising those who take part.
With the ceasefire between the US and Iran declared over by President Trump and further attacks occurring in Bahrain, civil peace could be tested to its breaking point, as Shi’a protesters engage in illegal symbolic funerals for Ayatollah Khamenei while the Bahraini government has recently stripped 69 Shi’as and their families of their citizenship without formal charges. With both sides entrenched in fear and resentment, sectarian securitisation and human rights abuses create the conditions for further protests and growing Iranian sympathies among segments of the majority Shi’a population, resulting in more anxiety from the ruling Sunni population. With no middle ground or dialogue being explored, civil peace in the Gulf island kingdom appears extremely fragile.
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