Simon Mabon is Professor of International Politics at Lancaster University and Director of SEPAD. He is the author of Schism: The Story of Sectarianism in the Modern Middle East (Yale University Press, 2026). He is on Bluesky @profmabon.bsky.social.
Since the outset of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran and going back to the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, long-standing tensions surrounding sectarian identity have intensified across the Gulf. The February killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — a political and spiritual leader for millions of Shia Muslims — and the ferocious exchange of attacks across the Gulf have created a precarious environment in which already repressive governments deepen their weaponization of sectarian identities to consolidate power. As the war continues, the distinction between legitimate security concerns and the collective suspicion of Shia citizens is again becoming increasingly blurred, reflecting a long history.
On April 30, Bahrain revoked the citizenship of 69 citizens for what its Interior Ministry described as "glorifying or sympathizing with hostile Iranian acts or engaging in contacts with external parties." In Kuwait, authorities claimed to thwart at least three terrorist cells linked to Lebanese Hezbollah in March, including one that had plotted to assassinate members of the ruling family, while thousands of individuals saw their citizenship revoked for social media posts. In the United Arab Emirates, state security forces allegedly dismantled a terrorist plot in May after arresting 27 men accused of belonging to "a secret Shiite terrorist organization" with links to Iran.
All three states sit at the forefront of Iranian attacks against Gulf states as its regional war with the United States and Israel rages. That assault certainly raises anxieties in each respective capital, resulting in crackdowns that increasingly adopt an identity-based character.
Such manufactured sectarian tensions are not new to the Middle East. British involvement in the formative decades of the 20th century saw various types of divide-and-rule repression implemented across the region, leaving political structures in which communal and sectarian identities are frequently intertwined with questions of power and loyalty.
Since the outset of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran and going back to the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, long-standing tensions surrounding sectarian identity have intensified across the Gulf.
- Simon Mabon
When those structures erupted into violence, such as during the 1975-90 Lebanese Civil War, the consequences were devastating and all-encompassing, resulting in around 100,000 deaths, a million people displaced and an estimated 17,000 disappeared. The schisms that drove the conflict have mapped onto political, social and economic life during peacetime. The Taif Agreement, a power-sharing framework that ended the war, has left the state in political deadlock while facilitating corruption, bureaucratic inertia and widespread anger across society. Political elites draw support almost exclusively from their sectarian kin as a result.
Hezbollah remains a divisive subject across Lebanon, especially as it fights Israel's illegal occupation of Lebanese territory. The rise of the Islamic Republic since 1979 has fueled this dynamic and broader fears of Shia communities around the region.
Iraq offers a similar story. The 2003 U.S.-led invasion ushered in a period of bloody sectarian violence, in part driven by political elites like former Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki. These Shia figures used sectarian affinity to consolidate power, increasing anxieties amongst Iraq's Sunni communities that helped foster the rise of the Islamic State.
At the time, King Abdullah of Jordan warned of the emergence of a "Shia Crescent," with Tehran and its so-called "Axis of resistance" militia network exerting largely unfettered territorial access and influence from the Islamic Republic to the Mediterranean Sea. Iranian support for Hezbollah shaped that anxiety, alongside the actions of Hezbollah al-Hejaz and Tehran's involvement in the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain's failed 1981 coup d'état.
In the following years, Gulf Shia communities alleged discrimination and marginalization by their rulers. When these grievances erupted in 2011 during the Arab Spring uprisings, narratives of sectarian manipulation and the perceived presence of would-be fifth columnists were regularly used to justify the use of force and restrictions on civil liberties. Citizenship revocation was used as a punitive measure, with almost 1,000 Bahrainis stripped of their citizenship, though 551 later had their nationality reinstated.
Gulf leaders have continued to use citizenship revocation as a mechanism of control. Mass trials in 2018 and 2019 stripped hundreds of dissidents, journalists, clerics and other opposition figures of their citizenship, effectively transforming nationality into an instrument of political punishment. In Bahrain, while previous iterations of citizenship revocation were subject to court processes and the right to appeal, a 2024 royal decree declared citizenship a "sovereign matter," effectively removing judicial oversight from the process and leaving countless Bahrainis stateless.
Beyond citizenship revocation, the war has also worsened widespread restrictions on freedom of expression and civil society.
- Simon Mabon
In Kuwait, the picture is both far bleaker and more complex. Some reports suggest that more than 71,000 people have had their citizenship revoked since 2024, though the number affected is considerably higher when including relatives and dependents. While citizenship revocation efforts were halted during the early weeks of the current war, they resumed following the June ceasefire. The campaign is part of a broader authoritarian trend that gathered pace with the dissolution of the National Assembly in May 2024 amid rising nativist sentiment.
Beyond citizenship revocation, the war has also worsened widespread restrictions on freedom of expression and civil society. In the early weeks of the conflict, authorities across the Gulf warned people to refrain from sharing content about the war that had not been issued by the state, with hundreds arrested for filming attacks and their aftermath, merely sharing clips or supposedly "glorifying" a hostile state and its leadership.
In the UAE, these restrictions followed Press and Electronic Media Law No. 41 of 2025, which expanded censorship and punitive measures to digital media, allowing criminal prosecution through the Penal Code and the Counter-Terrorism Law, both of which have received extensive criticism from human rights organizations. As a result, the regime's control over electronic spaces is hardening. In early April, Abu Dhabi's security services made nearly 400 arrests for documenting damage from Iranian strikes under charges like "publishing misleading information" or "glorifying a hostile state and its political and military leadership." As one Emirati official observed, the media battle was "no less important than the battle of arms."
Such restrictions are not limited to online spaces in the Gulf. On March 5, the Civil Defense Council of Bahrain's Interior Ministry banned protests "to preserve public safety and enhance civil protection measures." Four days later, the Public Prosecutor's Office called for the death penalty for some individuals, citing their "involvement in espionage." Those measures have extended to religious congregations. In Bahrain, Ashura commemorations — already heavily regulated — faced heightened scrutiny from state officials, including curfews on mourning processions, tight restrictions on areas marked for celebrations, the removal of Ashura flags and symbols and the use of excessive force against those protesting the actions of the security services.
These measures have transformed a fundamentally religious ritual into an issue of state security. For Shia communities that I have interviewed, the restrictions reflect a broader securitization of religious identity, in which ordinary acts of religious observance are increasingly viewed through the lens of political loyalty and national security.
Regional upheaval since Oct. 7, 2023, and the U.S. and Israel war on Iran have deepened these long-standing fault lines within the Gulf. Rather than separating external security threats from domestic political dissent, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE have increasingly blurred the two to tighten the screws holding their repressive systems together through the false narrative of insidious intent within their Shia populations. The need for explicit articulations of national unity has become increasingly commonplace, with the Gulf's Shia population forced to choose between members of their sect and their nationality, deepening grievances in the process.
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.
