MANAMA, (Reuters) – Bahraini forces used tanks and helicopters to drive protesters from the streets yesterday clearing a camp that had become a symbol of the Shi’ite Muslim uprising and drawing rare criticism from their U.S. allies.
Three police and three protesters were killed in the violence that has transformed a crisis between the island’s majority Shi’ites and minority Sunnis into a regional standoff between Sunni Gulf Arab states and non-Arab Shi’ite power Iran.
U.S. President Barack Obama called the kings of Saudi Arabia, a strategic ally of Washington in the Middle East, and of Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, to urge restraint. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Bahrain and Gulf allies who sent in troops to back the Sunni royals were on the wrong track.
“We find what’s happening in Bahrain alarming. We think that there is no security answer to the aspirations and demands of the demonstrators,” she told CBS. “They are on the wrong track.”
The assault began less than 24 hours after Bahrain declared martial law to quell sectarian unrest that has sucked in troops from fellow Sunni-ruled neighbours Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
A member of parliament from the largest Shi’ite opposition group denounced the assault as a war on the Shi’ite community.
“This is war of annihilation. This does not happen even in wars and this is not acceptable,” Abdel Jalil Khalil, the head of Wefaq’s 18-member parliament bloc, said. “I saw them fire live rounds, in front of my own eyes.”
A protest called by the youth movement, which played a leading role in the protest camp at Pearl roundabout, failed to materialise after the military banned all gatherings and imposed a curfew from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. across a large swathe of Manama.
A Reuters witness saw Bahraini tanks move in the direction of Budaya Street, where the protest was set to take place.
