In new video, Islamic States calls for attacks on US bases in Bahrain

Dubai: The Islamic State has now called its followers to launch attacks in Bahrain targeting American military personnel stationed on the tiny island.

The video appeal by the Islamic State came slightly ahead of a visit by US Defense Secretary.

The appeal for violence came in a video that also urges militants to attack the Sunni-ruled island's Shiite majority amid a wider government crackdown on dissent there.

The slickly produced video surfaced as IS propaganda has waned as the extremists continue to lose territory in Iraq and Syria under the onslaught of a US-led coalition campaign against them. Bahrain is part of that coalition.

In the IS video, images of Bahraini fighter jets are juxtaposed to footage of an airstrike hitting an IS-held area. It also shows clips of a Bahrain-based Gulf Air flight, the King Fahd Causeway linking the island to Saudi Arabia and other sites in the capital, Manama.

"Wherever the enemies of Allah are found, there is jihad. Below you are the malevolent (Shiites) and the apostate soldiers of tyranny," one fighter says, according to a transcript provided by the US jihadi-monitoring SITE Intelligence Group.

Bahrain is home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet, as well as a British naval base still under construction.

With AP inputs