According to AFP, “US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that Iran is directly or indirectly communicating with opposition groups in Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen in a bid to shape events there.”
“They are doing everything they can to influence the outcomes in these places,” Clinton told the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“They are using Hezbollah… to communicate with counterparts… in Hamas who then in turn communicate with counterparts in Egypt,” the chief US diplomat said.
“We know that they are reaching out to the opposition in Bahrain. We know that the Iranians are very much involved in the opposition movements in Yemen,” she said.
AFP added, Clinton pointed out that the Iranian regime “was trying to win influence even though it is not a natural ally of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Muslim Arab group in Egypt.”
Secretary Clinton also said it is “a challenge for the Iranians. They don’t have a lot of friends, but they’re trying to curry more friends,” Clinton said.
Patrick Clawson, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told AFP Bahrain’s Shiite community tended to look more to local leaders than to the Iranian regime.