Mideast violence rises
MANAMA, Bahrain – Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of anti-government demonstrators blocking access to the financial district of Bahrain’s capital on Sunday, as sectarian tension escalated in this tiny island kingdom.
The clashes began early Sunday after protesters set up barricades across a main road into downtown Manama and turned away cars headed for work. Dozens of police officers in riot gear forced the demonstrators back in a series of clashes over two hours, witnesses said.
Elsewhere in the region, confrontations between protesters and security forces continued in Yemen, and Oman’s ruler responded to demonstrators by giving some governing power to officials outside the royal family for the first time.
Bahrain, the Persian Gulf kingdom that is home to the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, has seen weeks of demonstrations led by Shiites, who make up a majority of the population but say they are discriminated against by the Sunni royal family.
The new clashes came a day after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met with the king, Hamed ibn Isa Khalifa, and urged the government to undertake reforms to prevent Iran from exploiting the unrest. Gates said there was no evidence Iran had been involved in starting the protests but that the longer they went on, the more Tehran could benefit.
In Yemen, government forces launched an unsuccessful attempt to shrink a huge sit-in near Sana University among people calling for the immediate ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The security forces launched a tear-gas attack in the afternoon and were joined by men in plain clothes who shot at the protesters with live ammunition from the ground and rooftops. The government disavowed any affiliation with the thugs, but the security forces appeared to be offering them cover.
In Oman, Sultan Qaboos bin Said granted legislative and auditing power to the state council, a body that previously served just an advisory role, the state news agency reported.
The new power for the council, which includes elected and appointed members, was the sultan’s latest maneuver as he attempted to deal with the most serious civil unrest seen since he took power from his father in 1970.