MANAMA – Bahraini authorities have foiled an attempt to smuggle explosives and arms, some made in Iran and Syria, into the country by boat, the Gulf Arab state’s public security chief said on Monday.

“According to the investigations, which revealed plans to carry out terrorist acts, security deployment has been intensified,” Major-General Tariq Al-Hassan said in comments published by the news agency BNA.

He said security forces had also dismantled a car bomb in the Al-Houra area east of Manama, seized a weapons and explosive cache and arrested 13 people, including a Saudi Arabian national, trying to flee the country by boat.

The smuggled munitions included what Hassan called anti-personnel and armor-piercing explosives, as well as “50 Iranian-made hand bombs” and “295 commercial detonators on which was written ‘made in Syria’,” he said.

Five jailed for 15 years for bomb attacks

A Bahraini court sentenced five men to 15 years in prison for two attacks by homemade bombs – including one during last year’s Formula 1 race, the Bahraini News Agency (BNA) said.

BNA said the men had admitted being behind the bombings, which destroyed several vehicles.

Two of the defendants were tried in absentia. The defendants were also convicted of a number of other counts relating to explosives, the agency said. – Agencies