Bahrain searching three terror suspects: reports

    Bahraini security forces are searching for three suspects believed to be planning "terror" attacks in the kingdom and harbouring materials used to make explosives, media reports said on Thursday.

Bahraini security forces had "identified three suspects believed to be involved in these terror activities... for whom there is a search operation underway," public security chief Tareq Hasan told reporters in Manama late Wednesday, according to the state news agency BNA.

Hasan said recent raids uncovered "terrorist hideouts ... which resulted in the seizure of materials and tools used in the manufacture of explosive devices."

He said the suspects involved managed to "flee" after the hideouts were raided.

Last week, Bahraini police announced they had arrested five of a group of 20 people wanted over "terror attacks" which included bombings and harming civilians and security personnel.

On May 5, the interior ministry said four policemen were wounded in a "terror blast" in a Shiite village. A similar explosion in another Shiite-populated village left four policemen wounded in April.

In a separate incident, a Bahraini court lifted a travel ban on prominent Shiite rights activist Nabil Rajab, a day after he was released from prison, a court official told AFP on Thursday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said Rajab was also ordered to pay a $800 fine for posting comments deemed insulting to Bahraini security forces on his Twitter account.

Rajab was released Wednesday after a three week detention for his tweets.

He remains on trial for five separate charges, including two related to comments on the microblogging site and three for anti-regime protest actions.

The tiny Gulf kingdom's Shiite majority claim marginalisation by the Sunni regime, and have for months been calling for political and social reforms.

Amnesty International says around 60 people have been killed since the anti-regime protests first erupted in February 2011.