Bahrain order US official to leave the kingdom

MANAMA :  Bahrain last Monday ordered a senior US official to leave the kingdom immediately because he intervened flagrantly" in the country's internal affairs, the state news agency BNA said.

BNA said the foreign ministry had declared US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Tom Malinowski persona non grata after he "held meetings with a particular party to the detriment of other interlocutors, thus discriminating between one people, contravening diplomatic norms and flouting normal interstate relations".

Bahrain is a US ally in the Middle East and has long provided a base for the US Navy's Fifth Fleet.

But it faces criticism over its record on human rights and its military response to the "Arab Spring" uprisings of 2011.

Bahraini mourners at the funeral of an opposition protester in Sanabis, on the the outskirts of the capital Manama.

Abdel Aziz al-Abbar, 27, died in April after being shot in the head during a protest earlier in the year.

His body was released for burial after authorities agreed to his family's demand to specify he was shot in the official cause of death.