The documentary, titled “Playing with fire” and aired by Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language news channel, said Bahraini intelligence officers were in direct contact with al-Qaeda terrorists and organized them into a terrorist cell to take out Shia figures inside Bahrain.

It exposed what it said were recorded communications between Bahraini intelligence officials and the al-Qaeda members and said the operations were authorized by Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa himself.

The documentary said the king intervened personally to ensure the success of the operations.

One notorious terrorist commander, Mohammed Saleh, is seen in the documentary revealing that he contacted Saudi Arabian officials to ask for weapons.

The documentary said Bahraini intelligence officials also met with al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in southeastern Iran to coordinate attacks within the country.

One terrorist, Hosham Baluchi, who headed the terror cell Ansar al-Forghan, had been recruited by the Bahraini intelligence in 2006 for the purpose of conducting acts of terror in Iran, according to Al Jazeera.

Iranian security forces hunted down and killed Baluchi in 2015.

In a debate on Press TV on Monday, James Jatras, a former US Senate foreign policy analyst, and Michael Springmann, an American author and former diplomat, agreed that some Arab regimes led by Riyadh had used terrorist groups to achieve their political goals in the region.