4 deaths reported dead as riot police storm camp in Bahrain

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Armed patrols prowled neighbourhoods and tanks appeared in the streets for the first time Thursday after riot police with tear gas and clubs drove protesters from a main square where they had demanded sweeping political change in this tiny kingdom. Medical officials said four people were killed.

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InfographicUnrest spreads in the Arab worldVideoBahrain protesters take over main squarePolice cars with flashing blue lights encircled Pearl Square, the site of anti-government rallies since Monday. Barbed wire was set up on streets leading to the square, where police cleaned up flattened protest tents and trampled banners. The Interior Ministry declared the protest camp “illegal” and warned Bahrainis to stay off the streets.
The island nation was effectively shut down since workers in the capital could not pass checkpoints or were too scared to venture out. Banks and other key institutions did not open.
The protesters' demands have two main objectives: force the ruling Sunni monarchy to give up its control over top government posts and all critical decisions, and address deep grievances held by the country's majority Shiites who claim they face systematic discrimination and are effectively blocked from key roles in public service and the military.
Tiny Bahrain also is a pillar of Washington's military framework in the region. It hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which is a critical counterbalance to Iran's efforts to expand its clout in the region.
Any prolonged crisis opens the door for a potential flashpoint between Iran and its Arab rivals in the Gulf. Bahrain's ruling Sunni dynasty is closely allied to Saudi Arabia and the other Arab regimes in the Gulf. But Shiite hardliners in Iran have often expressed kinship and support for Bahrain's Shiite majority, which accounts for 70 per cent of the island's 500,000 citizens.
Sporadic clashes between police and protesters continued in the morning, with demonstrators hurling rocks, then retreating. A group of young men broke up the pavement for more stones to throw.
A body covered in a white sheet lay in a pool of blood on the side of a road about 20 metres from the landmark square. Police cleared away the wrecked tents and the street was littered with broken glass, tear gas canisters and other debris.
Demonstrators began camping out Tuesday on the square beneath the 90-metre monument featuring a giant pearl, making it the nerve centre of the first anti-government protests to reach the Arab Gulf since the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
The police assault came early Thursday with little warning. Mahmoud Mansouri, a protester, said police surrounded the camp and then quickly moved in.
“We yelled, ‘We are peaceful! Peaceful!' The women and children were attacked just like the rest of us,” he said. “They moved in as soon as the media left us. They knew what they're doing.”
Dr. Sadek Akikri, 44, said he was tending to sick protesters at a makeshift medical tent in the square when the police stormed in. He said he was tied up and severely beaten, then thrown on a bus with others.
“They were beating me so hard I could no longer see. There was so much blood running from my head,” he said. “I was yelling, ‘I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor.’ But they didn't stop.”
He said the police beating him spoke Urdu, the main language of Pakistan. A pillar of the protest demands is to end the Sunni regime's practice of giving citizenship to other Sunnis from around the region to try to offset the demographic strength of Shiites. Many of the new Bahrainis are given security posts.
Dr. Akikri said he and others on the bus were left on a highway overpass, but the beatings didn't stop. Eventually, the doctor said he fainted but could hear another police official say in Arabic: “Stop beating him. He's dead. We should just leave him here.”
As the crackdown began, demonstrators in the square described police swarming in through a cloud of eye-stinging tear gas.