FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS
Al-Ashtar Brigades (AAB)
( AS OF JANUARY 2023 )
OVERVIEW
Al-Ashtar Brigades (AAB) is a Bahraini Shia militant group that plans and commits terrorist attacks against the Government of Bahrain with Iran’s assistance. The group emerged in 2013 when it split from the 14 February Youth Coalition, Bahrain’s oldest Iran-aligned Shia militia. AAB seeks to overthrow Bahrain’s monarchy and has claimed at least 20 attacks in Bahrain, some of which caused fatalities.
OPERATING AREA
Based in Bahrain; its leaders and some members are located in Iran.
MEMBERS
Unknown
TACTICS AND TARGETS
AAB has mostly targeted Bahraini police and security forces, using explosive devices and small arms. In 2019, AAB made its first video statement, in which it threatened to attack US and UK interests in Bahrain. Since its formation, AAB has received weapons and training on explosives from Iran’s IRGC, and Bahraini security forces have interdicted shipments from Iran to AAB that included explosively formed penetrators. AAB has also allied itself with Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militants and with Lebanese Hizballah for financial and logistic support.
FOREIGN TERRORIST GROUP DESIGNATION
The US State Department designated AAB as a foreign terrorist organization in July 2018 after designating two of its Iran-based members—Ahmad Hasan Yusuf and Alsayed Murtadha Majeed Ramadhan Alawi—in March 2017.
KEY LEADERS
Alsayed Murtadha Majeed Ramadhan Alawi
The Iran-based leader of AAB
Ahmad Hasan Yusuf
Iran-based leader involved in explosives training as well as in supplying AAB members with explosives, funding, and weapons to conduct attacks
NOTABLE ATTACKS
3 March 2014
Daih, Bahrain
AAB militants stage a protest near a parade of mourners— grieving the death of a Bahraini Shia in custody—to lure police into the blast radius of previously emplaced explosive devices, which then detonate, killing three police officers and injuring seven.