MI6 Manama station

The British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, has had a presence in Bahrain since at least the 1950s.

According to the Telegraph, the Service’s Middle East Controller, Geoffrey Tantum, worked closely with the then minister for defence procurement, Jonathan Aitken, in the early 1990s ‘to improve strained relations between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and facilitate British exports to the region.’¹