(MENAFN- The Peninsula) A bomb explosion killed a Bahraini citizen and wounded an expatriate man yesterday, the Interior Ministry said, the second fatal attack in the Gulf Arab state in as many days.
Political tensions have been running high in the kingdom, which has a Shia Muslim majority but whose rulers are Sunni Muslims, since the opposition boycotted elections last month.
The ministry called yesterday's attack a "terrorist explosion" and said police were on the scene of the blast in a village southwest of the capital Manama. Bahrain's largest Shia opposition group, Al Wefaq, condemned the attack.
On Monday, a Jordanian officer on a security exchange programme in Bahrain was killed by a locally made remote-controlled bomb in the village of Damistan, also southwest of Manama, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Bahrain's foreign minister described the killing of Corporal Ali Mohammed Ali as a terrorist attack using a bomb made by the Lebanese Shia Hezbollah group.
In Beirut, Hezbollah declined comment on the accusation.
The Interior Ministry's website cited Major General Tariq Al Hassan, the kingdom's chief of public security, as saying that several suspects had been arrested over Monday's attack.
Activist jailed
A Bahraini court sentenced pro-democracy activist Zainab Al Khawaja to 16 months in jail yesterday for insulting a government employee and damaging public property, her lawyer said.
Khawaja had already been sentenced to three years in jail and fined 3,000 dinars ($7,960) on December 4 for insulting H M King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa by tearing up his photograph.
She was free on bail and that sentence was suspended pending an appeal. However, yesterday's verdict was effective immediately.
Khawaja has become known for publishing news of the demonstrations on social media.
Khawaja, who recently gave birth, is the daughter of jailed activist Abdulhadi Al Khawaja and her younger sister, Maryam, the acting head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was jailed in absentia on December 1 for assaulting two policewomen.
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