TEHRAN – following the visit by a senior Israeli intelligence official to Bahrain, Iranian officials and analysts expressed concerns over Israel’s secret plots to disintegrate larger countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia.

In a rare move on Thursday, the kingdom of Bahrain formally announced that Yossi Cohen, the director of the national intelligence agency of Israel (Mossad), paid a visit to the tiny Persian Gulf nation and met with high-ranking Bahraini officials including the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) President, Lieutenant-General Adel bin Khalifa Al-Fadhel, and the Strategic Security Bureau (SSB) Chairman, Shaikh Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al Khalifa.

The two sides discussed topics of mutual interest and stressed the importance of the declaration supporting peace deals signed recently between Bahrain and Israel, according to Bahrain News Agency.

The agency said the visit took place on Wednesday but it did not give any further details about the discussions that the Israeli intelligence official held in Manama. It only reported that the two sides said the recent normalization deal between Manama and Tel Aviv “would contribute significantly to enhancing stability and promoting the values of peace across the region, as well as to opening up horizons of cooperation.”

Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have recently singed U.S.-brokered deals to fully normalize relations with Israel. On September 15, U.S. President Donald Trump hosted at the White House high-ranking American and foreign officials including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Abdullah bin Zayed and Abdullatif al-Zayani, the foreign ministers of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, who traveled to Washington to sign the normalization deals, which are officially known as the Abraham Accords. Various officials from Bahrain and the UAE and Israel held talks thereafter. The Cohen visit to Manama was only the latest in a series of meetings between Israeli officials and their Bahraini or Emirati counterparts.

Iran has condemned in the strongest terms the normalization deals between some of its Arab neighbors and Israel. Following the normalization of ties between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv, President Hassan Rouhani warned the UAE against giving Israel a foothold in the region.

“The rulers of the United Arab Emirates should know that they have gone in the wrong direction if they think that they can buy security for themselves by getting closer to the enemies of Islam and Iran,” the president said, warning that “unfortunately, the United Arab Emirates has made a big mistake and we hope it would change its wrong tack. We warn them against giving Israel a foothold in the region, then they will be treated differently.”

Iran also warned against any move by the Mossad against Iran, saying Iran’s response to any provocative move by the Israeli intelligence services would include the UAE.

“Since the UAE disclosed the normalization of its relations with the fake regime of Israel, Iran’s response to any overt or covert move by Israel’s Mossad spy agency or their agents in the Islamic Republic or the region will not be directed at the Zionist entity only, but the UAE will also be part of the response,” Hussein Amir-Abdollahian, the special aide to the speaker of the Iranian Parliament on international affairs, told al-Alam news network in early September.

Amir-Abdollahian said Israel’s main goal in normalizing relations with Arab countries was to gain broad access to Arab and Muslim countries to disintegrate the region’s countries including the UAE itself. The Israelis want to carry out their “big Zionists plot,” which aims to disintegrate the region as soon as possible.

“Saudi Arabia will conclude from its relationship with the Zionist entity that the U.S.-Zionist plots to disintegrate Saudi Arabia will be implemented faster, and there is a similar view about the UAE as well. You might say that the UAE is not a big country, but the Zionists want, through their secret plots, to divide the UAE into seven separate states or regions, and this is what they have sought to achieve in recent years against Iran, Iraq, Syria, and even Egypt and Turkey,” the special aide warned.

On Thursday, as Bahrain announced the Cohen visit to Manama, Amir-Abdollahian once again warned of Israel’s plots to disintegrate some countries in the region.

“UAE's normalization of ties w/the Zionists is only the betrayal job of Abu Dhabi, and not other emirates. In the Head of Mossad's trip to Manama, Bahraini Al-Khalifa & Saudi Al-Salman are just puppets of Washington & London. Israel is hatching the plot for KSA's breakdown,” Amir-Abdollahian tweeted on Thursday.

Cohen’s visit to Bahrain showed that the Israelis believe that their normalization deals with Bahrain and the UAE is not merely political but also have security dimensions, according to Seyed Reza Sadr al-Husseini, an expert on West Asia.

“Muslim countries should pay attention to this visit because it showed that the normalization or the publicization of ties between the Bahrain regime and the Zionist regime is not limited to political issues, but also has security goals, which will certainly be one of the main factors in destabilizing the region,” Sadr al-Husseini told the Tehran times, adding that Cohen’s visit was certainly orchestrated by the security officials of the regimes in Bahrain and Israel.

The expert pointed out that the visit was an important issue that countries in the region should closely monitor.

The Mossad chief’s visit came against a backdrop of soaring tensions in the region over Israel’s possible plots to disintegrate large countries in the region, especially after the U.S. officials sought to put the normalization deals into the broader context of reshaping the Western Asia region or establishing what they call a “new Middle East,” which is reminiscent of the policy the U.S. and Israel pursued since the 2000s.

“We’re here this afternoon to change the course of history. After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East. Thanks to the great courage of the leaders of these three countries, we take a major stride toward a future in which people of all faiths and backgrounds live together in peace and prosperity,” Trump said during the signing ceremony at the White House on September 15.

Sadr al-Husseini said Israel and the U.S. are still seeking to establish what they call “the new Middle East” by partitioning the larger countries of the region in a bid to maintain the security of Israel.

“The plan to disintegrate large countries in the region was one of the U.S. main plots. It began before 2000 but it reached its climax in 2006 when they introduced the Greater Middle East plan. This plan was under consideration since Ronald Reagan’s administration. It became clearer in 2000. And in 2006, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice clearly pointed to it in a trip to Beirut,” Sadr al-Husseini pointed out.

According to the expert, by pursuing the Greater Middle East plan, the U.S. sought to divide the region’s large countries into small colonies in order to easily control them and advance its interests by sowing discord among these colonies.

“The Zionist regime was entrusted with implementing parts of this plan. The disintegration plan aims to maintain the security of the Zionist regime. The presence of this regime on the periphery of the large countries can help accelerate the disintegration process,” Sadr al-Husseini stated.