ABU DHABI: Police firing tear gas clashed with hundreds of stone-throwing youth in Bahrain yesterday in heightened unrest that could complicate new efforts to end political deadlock in the kingdom.
Witnesses said the confrontation, in which some of the hundreds of opposition demonstrators also threw petrol bombs at police, followed the funeral of a teenager the opposition said was killed in clashes between police and activists on Thursday.
The disturbance in the village of Sanabis, west of Manama, was the latest in a series of skirmishes between Shia youth and police since Thursday, when opposition activists commemorated the second anniversary of a pro-democracy revolt in the state.
The violence has clouded the atmosphere around talks began on February 10 between the opposition and the government to find a way out of the impasse over demands for more democracy.
The next round of talks is meant to happen on Wednesday, February 20, Isa Abdul Rahman, the spokesman for the process, known as the National Dialogue, told Reuters. The next gathering had been due to take place today but at a February 13 session of the talks all participants decided to postpone the meeting to February 20, he said.
Late on Friday, four officers were hit by birdshot pellets in the Shia village of Karzakan, the authority added, quoting public security chief Major-General Tariq Hassan Al Hassan. The Interior Ministry said on Thursday that a security official had been killed in a “terrorist attack” using what it said was an inflammable projectile, according to a statement on its Twitter account.
Reuters
