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| Arabia |
| Blast Kills Bahrain Policeman during Uprising Protests |
| 2014-02-16 |
| [An Nahar] A Bahraini policeman has died of wounds he sustained in a kaboom during protests marking the anniversary of a 2011 Arab Spring-inspired uprising, the interior ministry said on Saturday. The "terrorist kaboom" struck in the Shiite village of Dair outside the capital Manama late on Friday and maimed "two on-duty coppers assigned to secure the road," including the one who later died, the ministry said on Twitter. It was the second reported blast during the protests marking the third anniversary of the uprising among the Gulf state's Shiite majority for a constitutional monarchy in the Sunni-ruled kingdom. Earlier, the ministry reported another kaboom in the similarly-named village of Daih, which caused minor damage to a bus transporting police personnel, pictures posted on Twitter showed. The blasts struck as protesters erupted into the streets in several areas of the small but strategic archipelago, which lies just across the Gulf from Iran and is home base to the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Shiite villages have been at the forefront of the campaign among the majority community for the ruling Khalifa family to surrender its grip on all key cabinet posts in favor of an elected government. Witnesses said that several protesters were maimed as police fired tear gas and bird shot to disperse them on Friday. Demonstrators responded by hurling petrol bombs at security forces, the witnesses added. Protesters had gathered in several Shiite villages in an attempt to march on the capital's Pearl Square where demonstrators camped out for a month in early 2011 before being violently dispersed by troops. "Some villages saw rioting, vandalism and the targeting of coppers. This required police to respond to these criminal acts through legal means," the interior ministry said on Saturday. A total of 26 people "suspected of rioting and vandalism" were enjugged Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! on Friday, the ministry said. The arrests followed 29 on Thursday. |
| Posted by:Fred |