Middle East Focus: In Bahrain: Mercenaries Gassing Baristas Led by Field Marshals of Gas.......

Arabia Deserta

In Bahrain: Mercenaries Gassing Baristas Led by Field Marshals of Gas.......

Rattlesnake Ridge

BFF

“The police cars were lined up across the street, staking out a hub of subversive activity. Their focus was not some underworld hangout, but a coffee shop, Costa Coffee, in a shopping mall. There was tension in the air when, suddenly, the suspects stood up, six women, and what did they do? They smiled and posed for pictures. The police fired their weapons, tear gas and sound bombs, and the women rushed inside, frightened, a bit, exhilarated, a bit, and very well rehearsed. “Thank you. Thank you,” the women and dozens of other customers crowding the patio chanted sarcastically as they rushed inside. The cafe’s security guard promptly sealed the doors with tape. ........... The repression has hardly let up ever since, even as the kingdom says it is instituting reforms. And with no place to legally organize, this coffee shop has become an unlikely gathering place for human rights activists and opposition leaders. Indeed, the manager says business has recently increased by 50 percent. “We disappeared because we had never seen tanks and bullets,” said Ala’a Shehabi, 31, an economics lecturer who avoided the cafe until recently. “But now we have removed the cape of fear and come into the public once again.” The assembled have grown accustomed to sipping lattes with gingerbread syrup, a drop of marshmallow and a less desirable side serving of tear gas. But even this patient lot has its limits, and when the riot police fired a second time, and the familiar burn of tear gas struck............”

I read on this website here that of the about 20, 000 of Bahrain's paramilitary and Special Security Forces, about 90% are non-Bahrainis. That means 90% of the security agents and goons who attack the citizens and arrest them and torture them and assault them are foreign mercenaries. Imported from places like Pakistan and Jordan and Syria and former Iraqi Ba'athists. The rest are regime baltagiyya, also led by self-appointed generals and field marshals (yes they have at least one field marshal in Bahrain and their last name is always al-Khalifa!). on the island of apartheid.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com