Pakistan to dispatch troops to Bahrain: report

April 13, 2011 - 0:0

Following the latest trip of Bahrain Foreign Minister to Pakistan and a request for help from Pakistani government to pacify the protests in Bahrain, the official Pakistani forces is to dispatch troops to Bahrain to stifle uprising in Bahrain, according to a report.

“There is no information of the number of Pakistani troops to be deployed to Bahrain, but it is said to be one thousand to three thousand,” Ahlul Bayt News Agency reported.
Meanwhile according to informed sources in Manama, Bahraini police backed by Saudi forces attacked Um al-Banin Masjid in Hamad Town and razed it on Tuesday.
Before this Bahraini security forces by the supports of Saudi occupiers demolished “Al-Watiyya Mosque” which was known as Qadam al-Mahdi in Mahuz village in the morning, ABNA reported.
They also demolished “Imam Jawad Mosque” in Hamad town.
In another development, a daughter of a prominent Bahraini human rights activist went on hunger strike on Tuesday to protest the arrest of several family members — including her father and her husband — over anti-government demonstrations.
Zainab al-Khawaja told The Associated Press that she will refuse food until her father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, is released, along with her husband, brother-in-law and uncle.
The 27-year-old mother of a baby girl first announced her hunger strike in a letter addressed to President Barack Obama that she posted on her blog on Monday.
The uncle was arrested in a different police sweep while the other three men were taken into custody in a raid on Zainab's house in a Shia village outside the capital Manama on Saturday. Zainab said her father was beaten unconscious before he was taken away by armed masked men
""My father's only crime is that he has documented human rights abuses in Bahrain,"" Zainab al-Khawaja told the AP in a phone interview. ""I demand he and all men of my family are released.""
Authorities in Bahrain have cracked down heavily on decent since martial law was declared last month to quell protests by the country's majority against the royal family that has ruled the tiny Persian Gulf island nation for more than 200 years.
The protesters are agitating for greater political freedoms and equal rights.
Bahrain holds particular importance to Washington as the host of U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
The United States says little about allegations of repression against Bahrain's Shias.
At least 29 people have been killed since the protests began on Feb. 14, including three opposition supporters who died in custody. Hundreds of activists, anti-government protesters and opposition leaders have been detained in the crackdown.