On 14 March 1996, a group of five armed terrorists threw

Molotov cocktail A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see '') is a hand-thrown incendiary weapon consisting of a frangible container filled with flammable substances and equipped with a Fuse (explosives), fuse (typically a glass bottle filled wit ...

s into a restaurant in

Sitra Sitra ( or , ''As-Sitra''), also known as Sitrah or Sitra Island ( ), is an island in Bahrain situated approximately south of the capital, Manama, which is on Bahrain Island. History The island of Sitra has witnessed various conflicts. One ...

, Bahrain after pouring petrol there, killing seven Bangladeshi workers and destroying the restaurant while standing near the entrance and preventing people from escaping the fire.

Aftermath

Bahrain's Prime Minister Sheikh

Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa () (24 November 1935 – 11 November 2020) was a Bahraini royal and politician who served as the prime minister of Bahrain from 10 January 1970 until his death in 2020. He took office over a year before Bahrain's ...

visited the scene after the attack. The Prime Minister ordered the victims' bodies to be repatriated to the Indian subcontinent as soon as possible and their families to be compensated. Seven people were arrested for the attack after several hundred people had been detained. The attack was by far the most violent incident in Bahrain's modern history, which had recently been characterized by tension between the ruling Sunni Muslim family and Shiite Muslims, who form the majority of the population. In December 1994 demonstrations had degenerated into riots which targeted foreigners, particularly Pakistanis due to the large number of Pakistanis in Bahrain's security forces. Following a string of terror attacks in 1996, the Bahraini government later claimed that

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

was behind the terror campaign. In July, the State Security Court sentenced three Bahrainis to death for the attack. The attack has been attributed to the

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP; ) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and Maoist organization. It is also frequently referred to as the Democratic Front, or al-Jabha al-Dīmūqrāṭiyya (). It is a member ...

(DFLP) by academic

Barry Rubin Barry M. Rubin (Hebrew: בארי רובין) (28 January 1950 – February 3, 2014) was an American-born Israeli writer and academic on terrorism and Middle Eastern affairs. Career Rubin was the director of the Global Research in International Af ...

and the

International Institute for Counter-Terrorism The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) is an Israeli think tank founded in 1996 and located at Reichman University, in Herzliya, Israel. Activities According to ''The Village Voice'', the ICT is a think tank developing public-poli ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sitra attack, 1996 1996 in Bahrain Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine attacks March 1996 in Asia Terrorism in Bahrain Terrorist incidents in Asia in 1996