Protests intensified in Bahrain on August 26 after around 150 demonstrators turned violent, attacking a police station outside of the capital of Manama with Molotov cocktails and other homemade bombs. The continuing instability in the Shiite-majority Gulf state is likely to escalate as the government abandons its failed reconciliation efforts and turns to repressive police tactics in an attempt to combat the resurgent protests.

The attackers were likely motivated in part by the death of a 16-year old who had been killed during a clash with riot police two days before. Frustrations in the small kingdom have been heightened in recent weeks over the trial of Nabil Rajab, a leading opposition figure and founder of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. A judge acquitted Rajab on August 23 of charges that he had allegedly defamed the prime minister, however he continues to serve a three-year prison sentence for his participation in the country’s Arab Spring protests last year.