Police in the Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain attacked demonstrators camped out in the capital on Thursday, killing three, in a move to stifle pro-democracy protests inspired by similar movements across the Middle East. "They are killing us!" one man told Reuters as police firing teargas and buckshot moved on Pearl Square in Manama around 3 a.m., dispersing some 2,000 people, including women and children, who had spent 3 days there in emulation of the successful protest camp on Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Having seen protests in Tunisia and Egypt gradually build momentum and topple veteran rulers there, Bahrain's Saudi-allied royal family, long aware of simmering discontent, seem to have decided to nip in the bud the latest challenge to their rule. The overnight bloodshed in Bahrain came as Libyans were preparing to mount a "Day of Rage" against their entrenched authoritarian ruler Moammar Gadhafi.
There was little sign early on Thursday that a social media campaign to get Libyans onto the streets had had much of a response in the tightly controlled North African nation, where Gaddafi, like the now deposed presidents Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, has ruled for decades. Recent days have also seen trouble on the streets of Yemen, Iraq and in non-Arab Iran.
Leaders from the Gulf in the east to the Atlantic in the West have been looking at a variety of measures to ease economic hardships that include rising food prices and unemployment among the young, as well as tightening security. An offshore neighbour and close ally of oil giant Saudi Arabia, Bahrain is also a banking hub and base for the U.S. navy.
The sectarian aspect of violence in Bahrain, whose majority Shiite population is ruled by a Sunni Muslim royal house, could fuel discontent among the Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia itself. "This is real terrorism," said Abdul Jalil Khalil, also from Bahrain's main Shiite opposition party Wefaq. "Whoever took the decision to attack the protest was aiming to kill." The demonstrations came after U.S.
President Barack Obama commenting on the overthrow of Mubarak, said: "The world is changing . . . If you are governing these countries, you've got to get ahead of the change, you can't be behind the curve". Authoritarian governments have reason to fear. Young people can watch uprisings on satellite television or the web and can talk on social networks hard for secret police to control.
In Manama, capital of an island about the size of Singapore and attached to Saudi Arabia by a causeway, armoured vehicles patrolled after the overnight violence. Protesters, whose tone had hardened following the deaths of two demonstrators on Monday and Tuesday, said demands for constitutional reform would continue and that some may now want the king himself to go.
At Pearl Square, abandoned tents, blankets and rubbish dotted the area and the smell of teargas wafted through the air. Helicopters clattered over the city and tow-trucks dragged away cars abandoned by protesters, their tires squealing on the tarmac because the brakes were still on. Bahrain's Interior Ministry said on Twitter that security forces had "cleared Pearl roundabout" of demonstrators.
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