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Bahrain – four killed in police raid on Pearl roundabout Libya – protesters prepare for ‘day of rage’ Yemen – violence mounts in bid to remove President Saleh 8.05am: Medical officials now say four people were killed in the protests, according to AP. A body covered in a white sheet lay in a pool of blood on the side of a road about 20 yards (meters) from the landmark square. Police cleared away the wrecked tents and the street was littered with broken glass, tear gas canisters and other debris. 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. 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.” 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. “They attacked our tents, beating us with batons,” said Jafar Jafar, 17. “The police were lined up at the bridge overhead. They were shooting tear gas from the bridge.” Many families were separated in the chaos. An Associated Press photographer saw police rounding up lost children and taking them into vehicles. Hussein Abbas, 22, was awakened by a missed call on his cell phone from his wife, presumably trying to warn him about reports that police were preparing to move in. “Then all of a sudden the square was filled with tear gas clouds. Our women were screaming. … What kind of ruler does this to his people? There were women and children with us!” AP also clashes after the raid. 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. Al-Jazeera reports that one man was beaten to death. 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. 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.” 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. “They attacked our tents, beating us with batons,” said Jafar Jafar, 17. “The police were lined up at the bridge overhead. They were shooting tear gas from the bridge.” Many families were separated in the chaos. An Associated Press photographer saw police rounding up lost children and taking them into vehicles. Hussein Abbas, 22, was awakened by a missed call on his cell phone from his wife, presumably trying to warn him about reports that police were preparing to move in. “Then all of a sudden the square was filled with tear gas clouds. Our women were screaming. … What kind of ruler does this to his people? There were women and children with us!” 7.41am: Mohammed Al-Maskati head of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights said up to 300 people were wounded in the raid on the protesters . “The protesters tried to run away but there were riot police everywhere,” he told me. He said medics were attacked when they tried to reach injured people at the Pearl roundabout. “Still there are injured at the roundabout,” he said. One of the victims was beheaded, he said. Al-Maskati added: “As a human rights observer what I saw happened was horrible, because the people were peacefully protesting. The government has broken the human rights standards, they have broken the diplomat standard, they have broken every law.” _ 7.20am: Three protesters were killed in the protests, Martin Chulov reports from the SMC hospital. “The riot police came with clubs, knives, and they were firing bird shot, sound grenades, teargas, they were slicing through tents , they took away some demonstrators, they beat plenty of them. By all accounts it was a particularly savage assault, which took about an hour,” he says. _ (This is Matthew Weaver taking over from Richard Adams who has been blogging since last night . Thanks Richard). 6.34am GMT – Bahrain: Emile Hokayem, Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, lives near the Pearl roundabout – nicknamed Lulu by protesters – and he tweets : “I confirm 4 BDF tanks on lulu roundabout”. _ He also has this observation on the geopolitical implications. 6.22am GMT: There’s a few complaints on blogs and Twitter about al-Jazeera’s coverage of events in Bahrain. I can’t speak for the Arabic channel’s coverage but AJE has been excellent throughout the night. 6.18am GMT – Bahrain: There are many reports of the authorities preventing medical treatment for the injured from Pearl roundabout. _ 6.03am GMT – Bahrain: AP sums up the latest scenes in Bahrain’s capital as the military spread out: Hours after police retook control of the plaza, the tiny island nation was in lockdown mode. Tanks and armored personnel carriers were seen in some areas — the first sign of military involvement in the crisis. Police checkpoints were set up along main roadways and armed patrols moved through neighborhoods in an apparent attempt to thwart any mass gatherings. Barbed wire was put up around Pearl Square and a message from the Interior Ministry declared the protest camp “illegal.” The air still carried the smell of tear gas more than four hours after the assault. 5.52am GMT – Bahrain: The leader of Bahrain’s main Shia opposition group said the storming of the Pearl roundabout site where protesters had camped out overnight was “real terrorism.” “Whoever took the decision to attack the protest was aiming to kill,” Abdul Jalil Khalil, a parliamentarian with the Wefaq bloc, told Reuters. 5.44am GMT – Bahrain: Just got off the phone with the Guardian’s Martin Chulov in Manama. He followed the group of protesters intending to march back to Pearl roundabout but says they were stopped and turned back about two kilometres from the site by a mass of police firing birdshot and huge numbers of sound grenades. With tanks also en route to the roundabout it seems the Bahraini authorities are taking no chances of allowing it to become a second Tahrir Square. 5.27am GMT – Bahrain: Reuters confirms the heavy military presence on the streets of Bahrain’s capital, heading towards the site of the recent protests: More than 50 armoured vehicles were seen travelling towards Pearl Square in central Manama on Thursday, shortly after Bahrain police cleared hundreds of protesters from the square in the early hours. 5.16am GMT – Bahrain: Tanks are seen on the streets of Bahrain. This photo shows what the photographer claimed was one of a group of 30 tanks heading to Tubli, southeast of Manama. _ 5.10am GMT – Bahrain: I’ve just been speaking by phone to the Guardian’s Martin Chulov at the SMC Hospital, Bahrain’s largest, which he says is crowded with thousands of people who have gathered there since the police assault on Pearl roundabout: Many of them were at the Pearl roundabout when the attack began shortly after 3.15am. The attack was coordinated from every direction, and the tent city they had set up was literally cut through with knives. The lead trauma surgeon at SMC hospital was tied up and assaulted, and he’s now in intensive care at the hospital. There was no official word on deaths or injuries so far, but hospitals in Bahrain have reported hundreds of people with serious gaping wounds, broken bones and breathing difficulties caused by heavy doses of tear gas. Martin says there were remarkable scenes of angry protesters surrounding the hospital’s fleet of ambulances, demanding that they to return to Pearl roundabout to help the injured: There are at least 20 ambulances that were prevented from returning to the square by the security forces. They have just been forced to leave by the thousands here who have become angry at their refusal, especially a group of 300 to 400 nearly hysterical women pleading with them to return. Now the ambulances have left many of the protesters have now set off on foot to also return to the Pearl roundabout – setting up a likely confrontation with the heavy police presence who have ringed the roundabout with vans. 4.38am GMT – Bahrain: I’ve just been speaking to Neil, a British research student in Islamic politics visiting Bahrain, who saw the prelude and aftermath of the police raid on the Pearl roundabout: My hotel is about a three or four minute walk from the roundabout where the protesters where. I was on a flyover overlooking it with a Bahraini friend, about an hour before the police moved in. It was totally peacful, there were lots of families, lots of kids, people talking, a speaker saying how the protests weren’t about Sunnis or Shias. Neil said the atmosphere in the camp was very friendly as he chatted to protesters in Arabic: “As protests went it was incredibly fluffy.” Neil returned to his hotel and got a phone call afterwards from a friend at scene, saying that the police had arrived in force, with clouds of tear gas in the air. By the time he got hurried back to the Pearl roundabout the site had been emptied of protesters: Now there was nothing there, the police had completely cleared the square. The riot police were dismantling all the infrastructure that the protesters had built up over the last few days, all the sound systems and ripping the pegs out of the big Bedouin tents, they were taking it all down. It happened very quickly and suddenly everyone was gone. While he observing he caught the attention of two police: While I was watching a couple of young cops, one of them with a tear gas gun, started hissing at me, to get my attention. I said to them that I was a foreigner, that’d I’d just come to watch, and that it was probably safer if I left. In the carpark area behind his hotel Neil saw some of the protesters stumbling away from the area. “I saw guys quite dazed, stumbling around looking shocked. I spoke to one young guy who said the police had pushed them all out and he didn’t what to do, he was looking quite bedraggled.” 4.12am GMT – Bahrain: Bahrain’s ministry of the interior announces on Twitter the “evacuation” of Pearl roundabout. Another ground-breaking use of social media. _ 3.33am GMT – Bahrain: The Associated Press’s Hadeel al-Shalchi has talked to protesters at the roundabout when the police assault began: After the crackdown early Thursday, protesters who were camped in the square described police swarming in through a cloud of eye-stinging tear gas. “They attacked our tents, beating us with batons,” said Jafar Jafar, 17. “The police were lined up at the bridge overhead. They were shooting tear gas from the bridge.” Hussein Abbas, 22, was woken by a missed call from his wife, presumably trying to warn him about reports that police were preparing to move in. “Then all of a sudden the square was filled with tear gas clouds. Our women were screaming … What kind of ruler does this to his people? There were women and children with us!” 3.06am GMT – Bahrain: ABC News journalist Miguel Marquez was beaten by Bahraini security forces near Pearl Square – while doing a report with his colleagues in New York by phone. In audio recordings posted on ABC News’s website you can hear Marquez being attacked while trying to talk to his assailants: Marquez said he was not badly injured, but he was hit with billy clubs and his camera was pulled from his hands while he yelled, “Journalist, journalist!” – trying to show he was not a protester. “There was a canister that looked like – No! No! No! Hey! I’m a journalist here!” he yelled. “I’m going! I’m going! I’m going! I’m going!” he said. “I’m hit. “I just got beat rather badly by a gang of thugs,” Marquez said. “I’m now in a marketplace near our hotel where people are cowering in buildings.” He paused. “I mean, these people are not screwing around,” he added. “They’re going to clear that square, tonight, ahead of any protest, on Friday. The government clearly does not want this to get any bigger.” 2.58am GMT – Bahrain: An official response comes from the Bahraini government, with a statement by the ministry of the interior . It confirms that police have cleared Pearl Square “after trying full opportunities for dialogue”: Ministry of Interior spokesperson Brigadier Tariq Hassan Al Hassan has announced that security forces have cleared protesters from the area of Pearl Roundabout after trying all opportunities for a dialogue with them, to which some responded positively and left quietly. Others refused to obey the law which led to interference to make them leave, he said. He said that security forces had been keen on exercising self-control and on communicating with the protesters through public figures to end the sit-in peacefully, in order to ensure that law was followed within the institutions of state. But some protesters exploited the situation by introducing illegal practices and disturbing citizens and residents by erecting checkpoints in the area surrounding the roundabout and stopping vehicles and passersby. This was considered a major illegal practice which spread fear among the public and adversely affected commercial and economic activity. The spokesperson said the Ministry of Interior had received numerous complaints from the public regarding the massive personal inconvenience and economic losses they had been suffering. He said the protest in such an important area greatly affected national economy, trade, tourism and public interests and also caused traffic jams. 2.51am GMT – Bahrain: Reuters’s Frederik Richter has some gripping detail on the assaults in Manama, which has now been cleared of protesters: Bahraini police broke up a protest camp in a central Manama square on Thursday, killing at least two people, as they tried to end three days of demonstrations inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, witnesses and the opposition said. “Police are coming, they are shooting teargas at us,” one demonstrator told Reuters by telephone. Another said: “I am wounded, I am bleeding. They are killing us.” One protester said he had driven away two people who had been wounded by rubber bullets. 2.40am GMT – Bahrain: There are reports of a third death. An eyewitness tells al-Jazeera that he saw one dead body in a hospital in Manama riddled with what sounds like birdshot or buckshot. _ All the protesters interviewed insist that the police gave no warning of the assault on the square, and that many of the protesters were asleep, with the crowd including women and children. 2.25am GMT – Bahrain: The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights has posted the above photograph of the assault by police and security forces on Pearl Square in the early hours of the morning – note the heavy clouds of tear gas. Here is some unconfirmed YouTube footage said to be taken during the assault. 2.02am GMT – Bahrain: The two people said to have died at Pearl square in Manama were a 23 year-old man and a 55 year-old man, according to al-Jazeera. The opposition group Al Wefaq says the two men were killed when riot police used tear gas and rubber bullets to drive out protesters from the roundabout. 1.51am GMT – Bahrain: The FT’s Robin Wigglesworth and Simeon Kerr report from Manama on the morning raid on the protest camp at Pearl roundabout: At least two protesters were killed as Bahrain police forcefully broke up an encampment of thousands of demonstrators demanding greater political freedom in the strategically important Gulf state. Police early on Thursday morning dispersed the largely Shia demonstrators who had since Tuesday sought to turn the Lulu roundabout in central Manama into the country’s equivalent of Cairo’s Tahrir Square and dubbed it ‘Martyr’s Square’. Witnesses said police beat the protesters who had built makeshift camps on the roundabout. An aerial view of the roundabout suggested police had retaken complete control of the area by 4am local time, with demonstrators dispersing throughout the capital. 1.43am GMT – Bahrain: Al-Jazeera is speaking to protesters at a hospital in Manama, with talk of two confirmed dead and many more injured following the police assault in the morning. 1.35am GMT – Bahrain: AP’s Hadeel al-Shalchi has more details: Riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets stormed a landmark square occupied by anti-government protesters Thursday, driving out demonstrators and destroying a makeshift encampment that had become the hub for demands for sweeping political changes in the kingdom. There was no immediate word on casualties or arrests during the pre-dawn assault on Pearl Square, which was filled with flattened tents and trampled banners. After police regained control of the square, they continued to chase protesters through sidestreets. The blow by authorities marked a dramatic shift in the protests. It appeared Bahrain’s leaders sought to contain security forces after clashes Monday that left at least two people dead and brought sharp criticism from Western allies, including the US. 1.28am GMT – Bahrain: The Financial Times’s Robin Wigglesworth is in a hotel overlooking Pearl square and is tweeting : The air is heavy with teargas. A lot of it. People seem to have left Lulu totally now, but wonder what tomorrow will bring. Went down to #Lulu, place is cleared by police. When people regrouped and tried to return they were forced back by teargas and rubber shots 1.16am GMT – Bahrain: Tariq al-Olaimy tweets on his narrow escape from Pearl square – nicknamed Lulu by the protesters – as the police were moving in on the protesters camped there. _ 1.03am – Bahrain: CNN’s Nic Robertson appears to have been near the Pearl roundabout when the police made their move in a pre-dawn raid on the protesters there. _ 12.56am GMT – Bahrain: The Associated Press is now reporting about the violent crackdown taking place in Manama: Riot police are using tear and clubs to try to regain control of a main square in Bahrain’s capital occupied by anti-government protesters. Hundreds of security forces carrying truncheons and firing rubber bullets moved into Pearl Square before dawn on Thursday. There was no immediate word on casualties. 12.39am GMT – Bahrain: More reports are coming in of the attacks by Bahrain security forces on protesters in Pearl Square on Manama. Police appear to have started by firing rubber bullets and tear gas into the square at sometime around 3am, and then moved in towards the crowd. There are numerous messages on Twitter and other social media of a large squad of police and security forces in the area. Earlier in the evening there were estimates of thousands of protesters camped on the roundabout, but numbers dwindled later in the night. Middle East Bahrain Libya Egypt Yemen Tunisia Morocco Matthew Weaver Haroon Siddique Richard Adams Paul Owen guardian.co.uk