MANAMA // A bomb blast killed a Bahraini citizen and wounded an Asian expatriate in the village of Kazarkan yesterday, the day after a Jordanian policeman was killed in a separate explosion.
Police have launched an investigation into the “terrorist attack” in Karzakan, a Shiite village south-west of the capital Manama, said the interior ministry on Twitter.
Witnesses said the bomb was planted on a corner of a road, under a tree.
On Monday, a Jordanian officer, who was in the country under a security exchange programme, was killed by a bomb while on duty in Damistan, another Shiite village also south-west of Manama.
The “homemade device was detonated remotely,” said police chief major general Tariq Al Hassan.
Bahrain’s interior ministry identified the officer yesterday as corporal Ali Mohammed Ali, and described his killing as a “terrorist act”.
The country’s foreign minister Khalid Al Khalifa blamed Shiite militant group Hizbollah for the Damistan explosion.
“Another policeman falls martyr in Bahrain,” he wrote on Twitter, adding: “He was killed by a bomb made by Hizbollah, the terrorist party.”
Security forces set up a cordon around Damistan and tightened checks on the road leading to the village, residents said.
It was the first deadly attack on security forces since parliamentary elections in November, boycotted by the main Shiite opposition group which is calling for democratic reforms in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
The vote was the first in the Gulf state since Sunni authorities crushed pro-democracy protests led by the majority Shiites in 2011.
The main opposition Al Wefaq movement quickly distanced itself from the Damistan attack, reaffirming its “rejection” of violence in a statement.
Attacks against the security forces have increased this year, with three policemen, including one from the UAE, killed in a bomb attack in a Shiite area on March 3.
Another policeman was killed in a bomb attack in a Shiite village in February during protests marking the third anniversary of the protest movement.
* Reuters and Agence France-Presse