The Shiite activists, members of the Islamic Revolution Supporters Association, said the Iranian government did not prevent them from sailing. But halfway to Bahrain, they decided to return to Iranian waters because of “the emergence of threats from the ships of the Peninsula Shield Force and the possibility of attacks,” the Hameyema Web site stated Monday.
After a three-day publicity tour in which they met with Iranian clerics and officials, the Shiite activists boarded the two vessels and left the port of Dayyar on Monday morning.
In addition to bringing aid, an organizer told Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency, the ships and the 150 activists — “doctors, clerics and women with babies” — planned to “bring a message of solidarity with the oppressed and tyrannized people of Bahrain.”