Alwaght-Bahrain has accused wealthier neighbor Qatar of harming its national security by "luring" some nationals to take Qatari citizenship, state news agency BNA said, a charge that could widen a rift among Gulf Arab countries. Bahrain, Saudi and the United Arab Emirates recalled their ambassadors from Doha in March, accusing Qatar of interfering in their internal affairs. The countries are all members of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC), along with Kuwait and Oman.
Efforts to patch up the rift largely centered around Qatars' support for the Muslim Brotherhood over the region, particularly in Egypt which the other countries deeply oppose. These retrogressive regimes are afraid of pro-democracy movements like Muslim Brotherhood, because their power is based on dictatorship and oppression. Indeed, on the one hand, they consider Muslim Brotherhood's grassroots as a threat to their crown, on the other hand Qatar, seeking for more political influence in the region, considers it as an opportunity to put pressure on its Arab rivals, especially Saudi. Qatar officials have backed Muslim Brotherhood financially and via Aljazeera, the semi-official Qatar media, in Egypt and other countries that resulted in unbridgeable gaps between them and other PGCC members.
Al Khalifa claims that Qatar had targeted specific families and singled out a particular category of people with that would affect Bahrain's national security and vital interests negatively. Since Bahrain is a Sunni-ruled kingdom over a Shiite majority calling for more democracy that can endanger dictator's crown, Al-Khalifa is acutely sensitive to changes in its demographic balance between Shiites and Sunnis.
Bahraini regime, for a long time, has been busy naturalizing Sunnis from abroad so that they would eventually outnumber Shiites in the small Persian Gulf kingdom. Al Khalifa has planned to tip the demographic balance of Bahrain in favor of Sunnis in order to save its dictatorship that will be certainly toppled if a democratic election is held. Al Khalifa security forces have suppressed Bahraini pro-democracy protests that erupted on the island during the Islamic Awakening three years ago. They have killed dozens of protesters via bullet and toxic gas, jailed and tortured hundreds without trial exiled many dissidents and revoked their citizenship. All aforementioned crimes were committed by Al Khalifa because international organization and powers did nothing but watching and keeping silence. They even refused to condemn Bahraini regime's violent actions against peaceful and democratic demands of Bahraini nation that emboldened Al Khalifa to keep its belligerent manner.
However, Al Khalifa's claim that Qatar tries to change its demographic balance is baseless, because Qatar's regime is also Wahhabi, most extremist sect among Sunnis, and is reportedly naturalizing members of nationalist parties rather that Shiite dissidents. In fact, if the Bahrain's assertion about Qatar is considered as true, it is an apparatus for Qatar to put more pressure on Saudi. Al Khalifa is Al Saud's puppet regime that serves its interests, so Qatar is putting Al Saud's interests at risk through supporting Bahraini nationalist opposition.
