SITRA — Masked vandals set three trucks and a car on fire early yesterday at a compound housing some 200 Asian immigrant workers in Bahrain, authorities said.
No injuries were reported among the workers from India, Pakistan and Nepal, who perform low-wage jobs for a construction company.
The vandals first targeted the three trucks, which were parked near a diesel tank, before setting another nearby car on fire.
Bahraini police secured the area in Sitra, south of the capital Manama, as fire-trucks worked to control the fires.
Last March a Manama building housing more than 30 Indian and Bangladeshi workers was set ablaze by vandals. The fire destroyed the building and damaged another.
Meanwhile, two Bahraini policemen were injured Saturday when masked youth threw Molotov cocktails at their patrol car, the second such attack in three days.
The attack at Karanah village, north of the capital Manama, gutted the police vehicle. Riot police with dogs blanketed the area in search of the assailants, said to number between five and eight.
Bahrain has seen sporadic unrest since December, when the return of a Shiite leader from Iran sparked clashes between his supporters and police at Manama airport.
Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammed Sanad was released within hours, but more than 60 people remain in custody in connection with the unrest.
Small numbers of protesters have regularly burned tires and refuse outside some villages in support of demands for the government to free Sanad’s supporters. Some of the incidents have turned violent.
The government has indirectly accused a newly established opposition group of conservative Shiite leaders, called Harakit Haq (Justice Movement), of inciting unrest — a charge the movement denies.
Families of those arrested, who have staged protests, also deny links with the protesting youths.
Three days earlier, a police vehicle was rushed at a red light and hit by a Molotov cocktail in Sitra, south of the capital, leaving two other policemen injured.
A loud boom rocked Manama on Wednesday, and authorities said it was a device fitted with fuses and powder designed to cause a noise mimicking that of a bomb.
A few hours later, a similar device was defused by police before it went off near a popular hotel inside the Hoora tourist district.
Also, Bahraini authorities on Friday night evacuated a hotel and a number of nearby buildings in a bomb scare.
The plastic body, which had a timer and a liquid, was discovered behind a chair by a hotel security guard making a routine check. Security officials later determined that the liquid was water.
