Bahrain's Unrest

[Rex Brynen]

Local are claiming the Pakistani army is also involved in the Bahrain suppression.

Certainly Pakistanis are:

Bahrain security forces accused of deliberately recruiting foreign nationals
Al Khalifa regime hires non-native Sunni Muslims in concerted effort to swing balance in Shia-majority Bahrain, say analysts

Ian Black, Middle East editor
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 February 2011 14.56 GMT

Bahrain's security forces are the backbone of the Al Khalifa regime, now facing unprecedented unrest after overnight shootings. But large numbers of their personnel are recruited from other countries, including Jordan, Pakistan and Yemen....

That being said, beware the almost universal habit of blaming security force violence on foreigers (in Iran, many demonstrators claimed that Lebanese and Palestinians were putting down opposition protests, since no Iranian would ever do that...).

[Pete]

Bahrain has a state security force that is largely recruited in Pakistan. As I understand it the organization is separate from the army and police. When I was there as a contractor in the 1990s uniformed members of the force with H&K 9mm SMGs guarded the transient billets for the U.S. Navy base in Juffair. A Navy contracting officer told me that after Gulf War I he had quite a time forcing various DoD elements out of the villas and seaside estates they had leased for themselves over there. TAD/TDY costs for the region were soaring through the roof, particularlty because at any given time roughly half of DoD personnel in the theater were in a temporary duty status.