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Bahrain has arrested 15 people it accuses of trying to "cause chaos" during last week's Shia religious commemoration of Ashura, police said on Tuesday.

No details were given of the alleged offences but the arrests took place during the ten-day religious commemoration remembering the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.

"Fifteen vandals for indulging in abusive activities to cause chaos" the police statement read on Tuesday, saying they received funding from Iran, a police statement said late Tuesday.

The killing of Imam Hussein was a decisive event in the split between the two branches of the Muslim faith, Shia and Sunni Islam.

Police released the names and photographs of the 15 detainees, and accused them of receiving funding from Iran through Bahraini political exiles.

"An investigation revealed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards financed the operation through terrorists living as fugitives in Iran, mainly the members of the February 14 group," it said.

An opposition, Shia-led February 14 Coalition organised mass protests in 2011, demanding an elected government and an end to absolute rule by the Sunni minority Al-Khalifa family.

A bloody crackdown was launched a month later, with Saudi-backed forces entering the island to help with quelling unrest.

Bahrain's two main opposition groups were outlawed and their leaders thrown behind bars or forced into exile.

Manama has stepped up its longstanding allegations of Iranian involvement in Bahrain's internal affairs in recent days, as the US administration of Donald Trump looks to build an international boycott of Tehran.

Bahrain's attorney general charged 169 people, on Tuesday, with "forming a terrorist organisation" in collaboration with Iran.

Trump abandoned a landmark 2015 nuclear agreement between major powers and Iran in May, saying that it failed to address Iran's ballistic missile programme or its "destabilisation efforts" in the region.