Bahrain Returns Confiscated Lebanese Passports

Bahrain on Tuesday returned confiscated passports to Lebanese citizens and allowed them to remain in Manama, days after expelling more than a dozen mainly Shiite Lebanese over "security concerns."

"Bahraini authorities have returned the passports of a number of Lebanese citizens living there after having confiscated them in preparation for their expulsion," a foreign ministry source in Beirut told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

"The authorities have allowed them to remain in the country and continue to work there," the source added.

Prime minister-designate Najib Miqati thanked Bahraini King Hamad for his cooperation with Lebanon's request that its expatriates not be blindly expelled from the Sunni-ruled, majority Shiite country.

Earlier this month, Bahrain expelled 16 Lebanese, 14 of them Shiites, over "security concerns" amid persistent unrest in the tiny Gulf state.

The expulsions this month came after Bahrain's foreign minister accused Lebanon's Hizbullah of backing Shiite protesters against the Sunni monarchy in Manama.

Hizbullah has rejected accusations it was training protesters, but group leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has called for continued uprisings in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen.

"We are with you, we support you ... we are ready to come to your aid in your best interests and ours, to the best of our ability'," Nasrallah said, addressing protesters.

Like its patron Iran, Shiite Hizbullah has consistently expressed support for its mainly co-religionist opposition in Bahrain, which is calling for a constitutional monarchy in the country where the Sunni Al-Khalifa dynasty has ruled for 230 years.

Bahrain's security forces on March 16 crushed demonstrations on the streets of the capital Manama, two days after a joint armored contingent from its Gulf Arab neighbors moved into the archipelago to back the government.

Security forces razed Manama's Pearl Square monument where demonstrators had been camped out for two months before being forcibly evicted.

The Shiite-led opposition says hundreds of people have since been arrested.