Bahrain Mirror (AFP): A Bahraini court Sunday ordered the kingdom's main opposition group Al-Wefaq to be dissolved, a judicial source said, after authorities accused it of "harboring terrorism."

The administrative court in Manama also ordered the Shiite movement's funds to be seized by the government, the source said.

The ruling comes despite appeals by the United Nations, United States, and rights groups for the legal process against the bloc to be dropped.

Al-Wefaq was the largest in parliament before its lawmakers resigned in protest at the crushing of 2011 protests calling for an elected government.

Washington has labelled the crackdown on it "alarming".

The court accused Al-Wefaq, which draws most of its support from the Shiite majority, of "inciting violence and encouraging demonstrations and sit-ins which could lead to sectarian strife in the country."

It said that the bloc had "criticized the performance of the state authorities -- executive, judicial, and legislative."

On June 28, Al-Wefaq's defense lawyers withdrew from court proceedings in protest at the government's push to accelerate the process, which was initially set for October 6.

The court already suspended all of Al-Wefaq's activities on June 14, ordering its offices closed and assets frozen.

The justice ministry, which had requested dissolving Al-Wefaq, accused the bloc of providing a haven for "terrorism, radicalization and violence" and opening the way for "foreign interference" in the kingdom's affairs.

That was an allusion to Iran, which Sunni-ruled Bahrain accuses of fomenting unrest among its Shiite majority.

Al-Wefaq draws most of its support from the Shiite majority in Bahrain.

Despite repeated appeals from its U.S. ally for "reform and reconciliation", Bahrain has carried out an intensifying crackdown on leading Shiite figures.

Al-Wefaq chief, Shiite cleric Ali Salman, is serving a nine-year jail term for inciting violence after a court in May more than doubled his sentence.

His arrest in December 2014 sparked protests in Bahrain, already rocked by a Shiite-led uprising that erupted in February 2011.

Last month, Bahrain stripped the kingdom's top Shiite cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim of his nationality, prompting street protests in his home village of Diraz, west of Manama.

Amnesty International had urged Bahraini authorities to halt its "intensified crackdown on the rights to freedom of expression, association and movement".

The London-based rights watchdog said it was "deeply concerned" by the decision to suspend Al-Wefaq.

Tiny but strategic Bahrain lies just across the Gulf from Iran and is the home base of the U.S. Fifth Fleet.