Bahrain security forces fire on protesters, 60 hurt

MANAMA, Feb 18 – Bahraini security forces fired on protesters near Pearl Square on Friday and a senior medical official said more than 60 people were treated in hospital, a day after police forcibly cleared a protest camp in the capital. King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa announced he had asked the crown prince to start a national dialogue "with all parties" to resolve the crisis rocking the island kingdom. Ali Ibrahim, deputy chief of medical staff at Salmaniya hospital, said 66 wounded had been admitted from the clash at Pearl Square in the capital. Four were in a critical condition. The injuries were worse than those on Thursday, he said. Friday's shooting occurred on a day of mourning when Shi'ites buried four people killed a day earlier in the police raid on the Pearl Square traffic circle. "We think it was the army," former lawmaker Sayed Hadi said of Friday's shooting. He is a member of Wefaq, the main Shi'ite bloc, which resigned from parliament on Thursday. The crown prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, appealed for calm on Bahrain TV. "I respect Wefaq, as I respect others. Today is the time to sit down and hold a dialogue, not to fight," he said. About 1,000 people gathered outside one hospital, some spilling into the corridors as casualties were brought in, including one with a bloody sheet over his head. Some men wept. Fakhri Abdullah Rashed said he had seen soldiers shooting at protesters in Pearl Square. "I saw people shot in several parts of their body. It was live bullets," the protester added. Another Wefaq MP, Jalal Firooz, said demonstrators had been holding a memorial for a protester killed earlier this week when riot police fired tear gas at them. Police had no comment. The crowd then made for Pearl Square, where army troops opened fire, Firooz said. Four people were killed and 231 wounded when riot police raided the protest camp in the early hours of Thursday. Soldiers in tanks and armored vehicles later took control of the square, which the mainly Shi'ite protesters had hoped to use as a base like Cairo's Tahrir Square, the heart of protests that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11. Funerals Several thousand mourners turned out on Friday to bury those killed in what Bahrain's top Shi'ite cleric called a "massacre" ordered by the island's Sunni ruling family to crush protests. The unrest has presented the United States with a now familiar dilemma. It is torn between its desire for stability in a longstanding Arab ally and a need to uphold its own principles about the right of people to demonstrate for democratic change. "I am deeply concerned by reports of violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries, and wherever else it may occur," President Barack Obama said in a statement. Revered cleric Sheikh Issa Qassem denounced the police attack on the square and said the authorities had shut the door to dialogue, but stopped short of calling for street protests. "The massacre was on purpose to kill and to hurt and not to clear any demonstration," he said. People interrupted his Friday sermon in the village of Diraz, shouting: "The people want the fall of the regime." Shi'ites form 70 percent of Bahraini nationals ruled by the Sunni al-Khalifa dynasty, the U.S. State Department estimates. Several thousand Shi'ites joined funeral processions in the island village of Sitra, south of Manama, for three of the dead. Police stayed away, but a helicopter circled overhead. On Tuesday, one protester was killed at the funeral of another. In a loyalist demonstration in Manama, hundreds of people waving flags and pictures of the king streamed through the streets, local television footage showed. Inside the Sitra mosque, men washed the body of 22-year-old student Mahmoud Abu Taki, who had been peppered with buckshot. "He told me before he went there, 'don't worry, father, I want freedom'," said his father, Mekki Abu Taki, 53. Ally against Iran "Trial, trial for the criminal gang," the crowd shouted. "Justice, freedom and constitutional monarchy." The Gulf Arab state is a close ally of the United States and Saudi Arabia, which see it as a bulwark against Shi'ite Iran. The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, which projects U.S. power across the Middle East and Central Asia, is based near Manama. The unrest in Bahrain, a regional banking hub and a minor oil producer, has shaken foreign confidence in the economy. The cost of insuring Bahraini sovereign debt against default for five years hit fresh 19-month highs, and the instrument was quoted at 310 basis points, up 49 from Thursday's close. Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said the police had to act against the Pearl Square protest camp to save Bahrain from the "brink of a sectarian abyss". Hassan Radi, 64, a lawyer in Sitra, contested that. "Nobody wants to be sectarian, but the people are forced into it when they are discriminated against. No jobs, no respect, this is obvious," he said outside the mosque. "What they are demanding is ... a modern state with a real democratic constitution that ensures their rights and equality." The king's announcement said the crown prince had been given "all the powers to fulfill the hopes and aspirations of all gracious citizens from all sections" in the national dialogue. In 1999 King Hamad enacted a constitution allowing elections for a parliament with some powers, but royals still dominate a cabinet led by the king's uncle, been premier for 40 years. Shi'ites feel cut out of decision-making, as well as from jobs in the army and security forces. Ibrahim Mattar, a lawmaker from Wefaq, whose 17 members resigned from the 40-seat assembly on Thursday, said 11 people remained missing after the police attack. Wefaq MPs said on Thursday about 60 people were missing. Saudi Arabia fears unrest spreading to its own Shi'ite community, a minority concentrated in the eastern oil-producing area of the world's biggest crude exporter. —Reuters