The Bahrain government jailed ten Shiites Sunday for forming an Iran-linked "terrorist cell" to launch attacks in the Gulf country, according to Agence France-Presse.
Manama officials announced in February that they had discovered a "terrorist cell" which was planning to conduct attacks on military and civilian sites throughout Bahrain, as well as targeting public figures. According to the allegations, the cell, calls Jaish al-Imam, was acting as a spy force for Iran and the elite Revolutionary Guards.
According to the court's ruling Sunday, four of the ten "terrorists" will be jailed for life and the remaining six will serve 15-year terms each. The jailed individuals were part of a group of 24 on trial for the cell allegations. The remaining 14 were acquitted.
138 Shiites have been sentenced to prison in Bahrain within the past 35 days, following King Hamad's announcement in August calling for harsher penalties for those committing "terror acts."
The Sunni minority government and the Shiite majority opposition have clashed repeatedly-and many times fatally-since the Shiite-led uprising in March 2011. So far, 89 have been killed since the protests began according to the International Federation of Human Rights.
