As Iran comes under growing pressure, Gulf states are increasingly worried that Tehran may try to destabilize them not only through missiles and drones, but through covert sleeper cells operating inside their borders.
Authorities in Bahrain, where the population has a Shiite majority, have arrested several suspects accused of cooperating with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and passing along sensitive information.
In Kuwait, security forces reportedly uncovered a Hezbollah cell made up of 14 Kuwaitis and two Lebanese, who were allegedly found with weapons and equipment and are accused of plotting to undermine stability and spread chaos. The developments have revived painful memories in Kuwait, which suffered a series of Iran-linked attacks during the 1980s, when the Iran-Iraq War spilled into the wider Gulf arena.
A Kuwaiti media figure said the deeper fear now across the Gulf is that the more the regime in Tehran loses control, the more it may turn to activating dormant terror networks in neighboring Arab states.