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Arab World Faces Its Uncertain Future

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synergy

Posted: Feb 16 2011, 09:27 AM

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US military HQ in Mideast watching Gulf unrest

QUOTE

By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer
7:16 am EST Wed 16 Feb 2011

WASHINGTON � Unrest surging through the Arab world has so far taken no toll on the American military. But that could change if revolt washes over the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain � longtime home to the U.S. Navy's mighty 5th Fleet and arguably the Middle East anchor of U.S. defense strategy.

The discontent that has spilled into the streets of Bahrain's capital, Manama, this week features no anti-American sentiment, but the U.S. has a lot at stake in preserving its dominant naval presence in the Gulf.

In announcing that it is "very concerned" about violence linked to the protests, the State Department on Tuesday underscored Bahrain's strategic importance as a U.S. partner.

"The United States welcomes the government of Bahrain's statements that it will investigate these deaths, and that it will take legal action against any unjustified use of force by Bahraini security forces," said department spokesman P.J. Crowley. "We urge that it follow through on these statements as quickly as possible."

The 5th Fleet operates at least one aircraft carrier in the Gulf at all times, along with an "amphibious ready group" of ships with Marines aboard. Their presence is central to a longstanding U.S. commitment to ensuring the free flow of oil through the Gulf, while keeping an eye on a hostile Iran and seeking to deter piracy in the region.

Anthony Cordesman, a Mideast defense specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Bahrain has security services capable of handling protesters and potentially backed by neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Thousands of banner-waving protesters took over a main square in Manama Tuesday in a bold attempt to copy Egypt's uprising. The demonstrations capped two days of clashes that left at least two people dead, and the king made a rare address on national television to offer condolences for the bloodshed.

"It is a serious problem, but whether it's going to flare up any more seriously this time than all the other times is hard to say," Cordesman said. "The question is whether they can shake the security structure of the state."

The implications for U.S. foreign policy and national security from the pro-democracy movements that have arisen in the Arab world � highlighted by Egypt's stunning revolution � is likely to be a topic Wednesday when Defense Secretary Robert Gates testifies before the House Armed Services Committee.

Bahrain became a more prominent partner for the Pentagon after the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq; since then it has granted U.S. forces increased access, plus permission to store wartime supplies for future crises.

In the weeks leading up to popular revolts that toppled autocratic regimes first in Tunisia and then Egypt, Obama administration officials portrayed Bahrain as being on the right track toward democracy.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, during a visit to Manama in December, called Bahrain "a model partner," not only for the United States but also for other countries in the region seeking political liberalization.

"I am impressed by the commitment that the government has to the democratic path that Bahrain is walking on," Clinton told a news conference Dec. 3, with Foreign Minister Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa at her side. "It takes time; we know that from our own experience. There are obstacles and difficulties along the way. But America will continue working with you to promote a vigorous civil society and to ensure that democracy, human rights and civil liberties are protected by the rule of law."

The tiny island kingdom has been the most volatile in the Gulf. Majority Shiites have long alleged discrimination and other abuses by Sunni rulers. A wave of arrests of Shiite activists last year touched off weeks of protests and clashes � and a highly sensitive trial of 25 Shiites accused of plotting against the state.

Bahrain has seen sporadic unrest for decades as Shiites � who represent 70 percent of the nation's 530,000 citizens � press for a greater political voice and opportunities. Reforms in the past decade, including parliamentary elections, have opened more room for Shiites. But they complain the Sunni-directed system still excludes them from any key policymaking roles or top posts in the security forces.

Bahrain is one of four Gulf countries with U.S. Patriot missiles based on their soil to defend against potential attack from Iran.

synergy

Posted: Feb 16 2011, 09:34 AM

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Bahrain: US Naval Base or Iranian Asset?

QUOTE

Posted on 02/16/2011 by Juan

What is at stake for Americans in the Bahrain unrest?

1. Bahrain is a major center for the refining of crude petroleum, refining some 270,000 barrels a day. This amount is not large, but given tight petroleum supplies and a price of over $100 a barrel for Brent Crude, an outage there would certainly put up world prices.

2. Bahrain hosts a naval base for the US Fifth Fleet, important to the US security architecture for the Persian Gulf (the Arabs say Arabian Gulf). Nearly 2/3s of the world�s proven petroleum reserves and 45% of the world�s natural gas reserves are in the Gulf region.

3. Bahrain is an important finance center.

The Shiite majority is attempting to assert itself there. A Shiite-dominated government in Bahrain might well demand a closure of the US naval base. It would not be an Iranian puppet, insofar as Arab Shiites are jealous of their independence and most Bahraini Shiites don�t follow ayatollahs; but it would certainly have warm relations with Tehran. A Shiite victory there would politically embolden other Gulf Arab Shiites, in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (Shiites are a minority in all three). Insofar as Iran enjoys soft power with the region�s Shiites, the net result would certainly favor Iran and at least somewhat disadvantage the United States, which already shot itself in the foot by helping install a Shiite government in Baghdad that has excellent relations with Iran. For the Bahrain government to become more democratic and more Shiite-influenced would annoy the Wahhabi Saudi state, which now sees the Sunni Bahraini king as a strategic asset.

user posted image

Thousands of Shiite demonstrators came out yet again in Bahrain on Tuesday. They are demanding that prime minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa step down. An uncle of the king, Sheikh Khalifa has been appointed PM for four decades. The Shiite protesters want an elected prime minister who would reflect their demographic dominance.

The killings of two demonstrators, one on Monday and another on Tuesday, have helped to galvanize the crowds. In an unusual concession, the king, Hamad Al Khalifa, apologized Tuesday for the deaths and promised that the shooters would be brought to justice.

The demonstrators thronged into the downtown Pearl Roundabout, and some are insisting on spending the night there. The main Shiite political party, with 18 seats in the lower house of 40 seats, is Wifaq. It suspended its participation in parliament on Tuesday in protest against the killings of the two demonstrators.

Bahrain has a little over 1.2 million people, of whom 54 percent are expatriate guest workers, nearly half of them from India. I can remember, on the occasions I was in Manama, the way signs in Malayalam festooned the market and the money-changer stalls. The other 568,000 are Bahrainis. Of these, social scientists think about two-thirds, or about 374,000, are Shiites. In turn, about 100,000 of these are Ajamis, i.e. Shiites of Iranian heritage who are now Arabs. The rest are Baharna or indigenous Bahraini Shiites, who mainly adhere to the conservative Akhbari school that does not believe in following ayatollahs. Many of them live in rural villages outside the capital.

The other 187,000 or so are Sunni Bahrainis, the community to which King Hamad Al Khalifah belongs. He has reigned since 2002.

user posted image

In the Gulf, typically guest workers cannot vote and don�t have permanent residency or a path to citizenship, though it is rumored that the Sunni monarch, King Hamad Al Khalifa, has bestowed Bahraini citizens on expatriate Sunnis in a so far vain attempt offset the indigenous Shiite majority.

The Bahrain constitution lets the Sunni king appoint the 40 members of the upper house of parliament. The lower house also has 40 members, and in the 2010 election only 18 of them were captured by the Shiite religious party, Wifaq, led by cleric Ali Salman. The other 22 went to Sunnis of various stripes.

user posted image

So, in a country where citizens are probably two-thirds Shiite, Shiites have little representation in the senate and are a minority even in the elected lower house. Not only can the Sunni-dominated upper house veto measures passed by the lower house, but the king himself can veto legislation at will and can prorogue parliament whenever he likes.

Many Shiites in rural areas are poor, despite Bahrain�s riches, derived from its small petroleum industry, its vital finance sector, and strategic rent from the US for the US naval base for the Fifth Fleet. Wifaq not only seeks more equitable representation for the Shiite majority but also a better economic deal for the poor.

Aljazeera English has video on Bahrain:

synergy

Posted: Feb 17 2011, 07:57 AM

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Bahrain Army Cracks down Hard on Protesters, kills 4, wounds 95

QUOTE

Posted on 02/17/2011 by Juan Cole | Informed Comment

Bahrain�s king, Hamad Al Khalifa, ordered troops and tanks into Pearl Square in downtown Manama in the early hours of Thursday morning. They fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and used batons to clear the hundreds of demonstrators who had decided to stay the night in the square, killing four protesters and injuring 95. About 50 tanks were reportedly on their way to the site on Thursday morning.

On Wednesday, thousands of protesters had come out to mourn the second of two dissidents who had been killed by police repressing earlier demonstrations.

Aljazeera English covers what happened during the day on Wednesday:

Then the military decided to move in to crush the dissident forces.

Then Aljazeera English on Wednesday night delivered the bad news:

The differences between Bahrain on the one hand and Tunisia & Egypt on the other are legion. But the strong ethnic and sectarian divide between the minority Sunni king and the majority Shiite population is key here. The military that crushed the mostly Shiite protesters on Thursday morning is Sunni. The secret police are Sunni (and sometimes even expatriate Pakistanis & etc.) If the Shiites got what they wanted, i.e. more democracy and a weaker monarchy, then the interests of the Sunni ruling class would be profoundly endangered.

In Bahrain�s case, the interest of the Saudi state in backing the Sunni monarchy, and fear that the Shiites would favor Iran, complicates the story regionally. Saudi Arabia is very wealthy and very nearby (a causeway connects the main island of Bahrain to the Saudi mainland, across which Saudi expatriates come in, and act as a support for the king against his own Shiite population).

Tunisia and Egypt are much more unified populations, mostly Sunni and Arab. The military in neither place was afraid that if the strong man was overthrown, some alien ethno-sectarian group might take over that would imperil the prerogatives of the existing Establishment. Nor were there big regional geopolitical divides, though of course the far rightwing Likud government of Israel preferred that Mubarak remain as strong man. It was not powerful in Egypt, however, while Saudi Arabia is powerful in Bahrain.

Both Tunisia and Egypt were class-based movements, protests of the blue and white collar workers. While economic grievances are important in Bahrain, they are being reworked as sectarian grievances, since most of the rural and small-town poor are Shiites.

There is still no guarantee that the Sunni government will succeed in repressing the movement of the Shiite majority for more democracy in Bahrain, but determination to use force against protesters does raise the cost of activism significantly, and sometimes can tamp it down.

synergy

Posted: Feb 17 2011, 12:51 PM

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Bahrain crushes protest camp, locks down capital

QUOTE

By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated Press
10:42 am EST Thu 17 Feb 2011

MANAMA, Bahrain � Troops and tanks locked down the capital of this tiny Gulf kingdom after riot police swinging clubs and firing tear gas smashed into demonstrators, many of them sleeping, in a pre-dawn assault Thursday that uprooted their protest camp demanding political change. Medical officials said four people were killed.

Hours after the attack on Manama's main Pearl Square, the military announced a ban on gatherings, saying on state TV that it had "key parts" of the capital under its control.

After several days of holding back, the island nation's Sunni rulers unleashed a heavy crackdown, trying to stamp out the first anti-government upheaval to reach the Arab states of the Gulf since the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. In the surprise assault, police tore down protesters' tents, beating men and women inside and blasting some with shotgun sprays of birdshot.

It was a sign of how deeply the Sunni monarchy � and other Arab regimes in the Gulf � fear the repercussions of a prolonged wave of protests, led by members of the country's Shiite majority but also joined by growing numbers of discontented Sunnis.

Tiny Bahrain 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. Bahrain's rulers and their Arab allies depict any sign of unrest among their Shiite populations as a move by neighboring Shiite-majority Iran to expand its clout in the region.

But the assault may only further enrage protesters, who before the attack had called for large rallies Friday. In the wake of the bloodshed, angry demonstrators chanted "the regime must go" and burned pictures of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa outside the emergency ward at Salmaniyah hospital, the main state medical facility.

"We are even angrier now. They think they can clamp down on us, but they have made us angrier," Makki Abu Taki, whose son was killed in the assault, shouted in the hospital morgue. "We will take to the streets in larger numbers and honor our martyrs. The time for Al Khalifa has ended."

The Obama administration expressed alarm over the violent crackdown. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Bahrain's foreign minister to register Washington's "deep concern" and urge restraint. Similar criticism came from Britain and the European Union.

Click image to see photos of protests in Bahrain

AP/Hassan Ammar

Salmaniyah hospital was thrown into chaos by a stream of dozens of wounded from Pearl Square, brought in by ambulances and private cars. At least one of the dead was peppered with bloody holes from pellets fired from police shotguns. Nurses rushed in men and women on stretchers, their heads bleeding, arms in casts, faces bruised. At the entrance, women wrapped in black robes embraced each other and wept.

The capital Manama was effectively shut down Thursday. For the first time in the crisis, tanks rolled into the streets and military checkpoints were set up as army patrols circulated. The Interior Ministry warned Bahrainis to stay off the streets. Banks and other key institutions did not open, and workers stayed home, unable or to afraid to pass through checkpoints to get to their jobs.

Barbed wire and police cars with flashing blue lights encircled Pearl Square, the site of anti-government rallies since Monday. The square was turned into a field of flattened tents and the strewn belongings of the protesters who had camped there � pieces of clothing and boxes of food.

Banners lay trampled on the ground, littered with broken glass, tear gas canisters and debris. A body covered in a white sheet lay in a pool of blood on the side of a road nearby.

Demonstrators had been camping out for days around the landmark square's 300-foot (90-meter) monument featuring a giant pearl, a testament to the island's pearl-diving past.

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 make up 70 percent of Bahrain's 500,000 citizens but claim they face systematic discrimination and poverty and are effectively blocked from key roles in public service and the military.

Shiites have clashed with police before in protests over their complaints. But the growing numbers of Sunnis joining the latest protests have come as a surprise to authorities, said Simon Henderson, a Gulf specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"The Sunnis seem to increasingly dislike what is a very paternalistic government," he said, adding that the crackdown was "symptomatic" of Gulf nations' response to crises. "As far as the Gulf rulers are concerned there's only one proper way with this and that is: be tough and be tough early."

The assault came early Thursday with little warning, demonstrators said. Police surrounded the square and then quickly moved in. Some lined up on a bridge overhead, pumping down volleys of tear gas, as others waded into the camp, knocking down tents and swinging truncheons at those inside.

"We yelled, 'We are peaceful! Peaceful!'" said protester Mahmoud Mansouri. "The women and children were attacked just like the rest of us."

Dr. Sadek Al-Ikri, 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.

Al-Ikri 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."

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!"

ABC News said its correspondent, Miguel Marquez, was caught in the crowd and beaten by men with billy clubs, although he was not badly injured.

The violence killed four people, said hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Bahrain's parliament � minus opposition lawmakers who are staging a boycott � met in emergency session. One pro-government member, Jamila Salman, broke into tears. A leader of the Shiite opposition Abdul-Jalil Khalil said 18 lawmakers resigned to protest the killings.

Hours before police moved in, the mood in the makeshift tent city was festive and confident.

People sipped tea, ate donated food and smoked apple- and grape-flavored tobacco from water pipes. The men and women mainly sat separately � the women a sea of black in their traditional dress. Some youths wore the red-and-white Bahraini flag as a cape.

While the protests began as a cry for the country's Sunni monarchy to loosen its grip, the uprising's demands have steadily grown bolder. Many protesters called for the government to provide more jobs and better housing, free all political detainees and abolish the system that offers Bahraini citizenship to Sunnis from around the Middle East.

Increasingly, protesters also chanted slogans to wipe away the entire ruling dynasty that has led Bahrain for more than 200 years and is firmly backed by the Sunni sheiks and monarchs across the Gulf.

The stability of Bahrain's government is seen as crucial by its other allies in the Gulf, who � though they rarely say it in public � see Bahrain's Shiite majority as the weak link in their unity against Iranian influence.

Hard-liners in Iran have often expressed kinship and support for Bahrain's Shiites. But in Bahrain, the community staunchly denies being a tool of Tehran, saying their complaints are rooted in their country's unbalanced system.

Although Bahrain is sandwiched between OPEC heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Qatar, it has limited oil resources and depends heavily on its role as a regional financial hub and playground for Saudis, who can drive over a causeway to enjoy Bahrain's Western-style bars, hotels and beaches.

The unrest could threaten the opening next month of Formula One racing, one of the centerpieces of Bahrain's claims for international prestige. The GP2 Asia Series race, due to start Friday on the same circuit used by Formula One, was called off at the request of the Bahrain Motorsport Federation "due to force majeure," race organizers announced Thursday.

Social networking websites had been abuzz Wednesday with calls to press ahead with the protests. They were matched by insults from presumed government backers who called the demonstrators traitors and agents of Iran.

The protest movement's next move is unclear.

Before the attack on the square, protesters had called for major rallies after Friday prayers. The reported deaths, however, could become a fresh rallying point. Thousands of mourners had turned out for the funeral processions of two other people killed in the protests earlier in the week.

After prayers Wednesday evening, a Shiite imam in the square had urged Bahrain's youth not to back down.

"This square is a trust in your hands and so will you whittle away this trust or keep fast?" the imam said. "So be careful and be concerned for your country and remember that the regime will try to rip this country from your hand but if we must leave it in coffins then so be it!"

Across the city, government supporters in a caravan of cars waved national flags and displayed portraits of the king.

"Come join us!" they yelled into markets and along busy streets. "Show your loyalty."

Thousands of mourners turned out Wednesday for the funeral procession of 31-year-old Fadhel al-Matrook, one of two people killed Monday in the protests. Later, in Pearl Square, his father Salman pleaded with protesters not to give up.

"He is not only my son. He is the son of Bahrain, the son of this nation," he yelled. "His blood shouldn't be wasted."

___

Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

synergy

Posted: Feb 17 2011, 05:48 PM

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Britain�s role in Bahrain�s torture regime

QUOTE

by Paul Woodward on February 17, 2011 | War in Context

Colonel Ian Henderson, who from 1966 until 1998 was Bahrain�s security chief, is alleged to have instituted and overseen a brutal torture regime in the Gulf state, as a result of which he came to be known as the �Butcher of Bahrain.� Numerous human rights organizations have investigated and confirmed the allegations against him, yet an investigation by British police was suspended in 2008 due to a lack of co-operation from the Bahrain government.

�Ian Henderson has played a very dirty role,� said Saeed Shehabi, Bahrain Freedom Movement, in 2002. �Ever since he came to Bahrain in 1966, he embarked upon an era of terror and thousands of people were arrested � arbitrarily arrested � and tortured under his command. Until he retired, two or three years ago, he was the strong man behind the whole repressive regime in Bahrain.�

Blind Eye to the Butcher (2002)

In a report on Bahrain�s reliance on foreign nationals in its security services, Ian Black adds:

Bahrainis often complain that the riot police and special forces do not speak the local dialect, or in the case of Baluchis from Pakistan, do not speak Arabic at all and are reviled as mercenaries. Officers are typically Bahrainis, Syrians or Jordanians. Iraqi Ba�athists who served in Saddam Hussein�s security forces were recruited after the US-led invasion in 2003. Only the police employs Bahraini Shias.

The secret police � the Bahrain national security agency, known in Arabic as the Mukhabarat � has undergone a process of �Bahrainisation� in recent years after being dominated by the British until long after independence in 1971. Ian Henderson, who retired as its director in 1998, is still remembered as the �Butcher of Bahrain� because of his alleged use of torture. A Jordanian official is currently described as the organisation�s �master torturer�.

Channel 4 report on human rights abuses in Bahrain (1999)

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DE Teodoru February 17, 2011 at 2:52 pm

That Blair is an fool was proven by his obsession with the illusion of making Britain look bigger by standing next to the US. In fact, he looks like a poodle next to a pile of Bush-it!

And so, shown to be someone else�s pet, Britain on the decline can only prove its fearsomeness one opponent of British interests at a time. If you are emaciated by cancer and everyone knows you have cancer, the only way you can be fearsome to your enemies is to be seen guiding others in their torture. For example, the chief of the Hungarian Secret Police frightened everyone because his thugs randomly arrested and tortured people in his Budapest HQ in his presence. When, in 1956, the Hungarian rebels saw he was such a little thing quivering in his boots, they didn�t kill him because he was a Jews (as some claim) but because the idea that such a puny guy terrorized them for so long made them so enraged that they pounced on him in revenge. Britain, since it began dying of consumption after WWII, has had to create fear by becoming the �torture master� giving on-the-job-training and supervision to all British Commonwealth members� secret police; that way, despite its decline, at the existential level, locals out to remove British puppets, would conclude that it�s not wise to screw around with the Empire, though it no longer exists. So, puny men like Henderson made sure that they�re seen by the victims as guiding the torturers so that victims pass the word around: IT�S NOT WISE TO FOOL AROUND WITH THE DECENDENTS OF QUEEN VICTORIA AS THEY STILL CAN HURT YOU REAL BAD!

Those he-man high-tech heroes you see in British MI-5 and MI-6 BBC movies are not the real guys�the real guys are more like the Hungarian chief of secret police or Henderson!

The same can be said about today�s CIA. Our operatives, as you can see on secret videos, are not James Bond lean but look plump like DCI Tenet or puny like DCI Hayden. Often they�re plump, not because of heavy winter clothing, but because bag men recruiting locals and transferring money are usually fat from nervous over-eating and lack of exercise!

Since the end of the Cold War, as US declines, we�re doing the same thing as the Brits. And, we�re doing it a hell of a lot more than ever before since 9/11. At end of WWII we were indeed the good guys. But since Bush, our secret agencies have had to create the illusion that we can get anyone anytime because, as a declining power�rotting from the top like a fish� we have had to hide our corrupting national weakness. Our leaders seem so dumb or helpless�just like the British rulers� that we have to resort to the same �being there� when our friends the thugs ruling the Middle East torture resisters against scumbag rulers we support. One might ask, where did that get Blair, his career ruined as Bush-it�s poodle? You can see how worn-out Blair is in self-disdain and shame. But, out of power, there�s nothing he can do to change his image, now that he�s in an even more personally helpless position.

The lesson is, however, that doing as we decline, what Britain has been doing since its decline, will only sink us deeper into a position where the only friend we have is Israel. And how much of a friend is that, given that Mossad may have wiped out two Kennedys in fear that they would force it to give up on its nuclear weapons?

Carter was the only president who showed that despite humiliation by Vietnam and ridicule by Watergate, the US could regain its leadership status� though incredibly weak� by behaving in a consistently ethical fashion. With the neocons Pharisees declaring this century America�s �unipolar moment,� they have duped us, not into appear strong, but rather as Israel�s mad dog on a chain. What we�re like off that chain, on our own, is demonstrated every day in Afghanistan: weak and trying to fake power through boom, boom, boom and bang, bang, bang. Let us learn from Britain�s error of trying to fake fearsomeness rather than draw into itself and rebuild its power as a model of world order.

synergy

Posted: Feb 17 2011, 06:05 PM

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US-backed state-terrorism in the Middle East

QUOTE

by Paul Woodward on February 17, 2011 | War in Context

The pro-democracy rally at Bahrain�s Lulu Roundabout was brought to a violent end at 3am this morning when police launched a brutal assault against what at that time were mostly sleeping protesters.

Was this one of the �difficulties along the way� down �the democratic path that Bahrain is walking on� for the nation Hillary Clinton described as a �model partner� for the US less than three months ago?

When security forces launch a brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters, killing five, injuring hundreds and then the government prevents ambulances reaching the injured, there�s only one way this can be described: state terrorism.

And when the state in which this is occurring, Bahrain, is of preeminent importance to the US government because it serves as the base for the US Fifth Fleet and US naval operations in the Gulf, this becomes US-back state terrorism.

Mealy-mouthed statements from the White House on the need for �both sides� to exercise restraint and avoid violence, do nothing to disguise American complicity as yet again Washington attempts to shield one of its allies.

Here�s some of what the New York Times� Nicholas Kristof has reported in the last few hours:

* At hospital in #Bahrain. 600 brought here w/ injuries as of 8 am, more since. Beatings, shotgun pellets, rubber bullets.
* Nurse told me she saw handcuffed prisoner beaten by police, then executed with gun.
* Abt 10 ambulance paramedics attacked by #Bahrain police. I interviewed them, saw their injuries.
* #Bahrain govt has ordered ambulances to stop going out, hospital says.
* 1 #Bahrain ambulance driver told me #Saudi army officer held gun to his head, said wld kill him if helped injured.
* Witnesses say #Bahrain police cursed Shia as they attacked peaceful demonstrators. I haven�t found 1 Sunni victim.
* Crowd growing at main #Bahrain hospital, chanting slogans against royal family. Will govt attack them here?
* In morgue, I spoke to brother of 22 year old killed by police shotgun blast. He says King Hamad must step down.

Maryam Alkhawaja from the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights tweets that �several Bahraini officers are being prosecuted for refusing to take part in violence against peaceful protesters.�

Meanwhile, Amnesty International provides the following chilling account of torture conducted by the Egyptian army, just days before Hosni Mubarak stepped down:

An 18-year-old secondary school student from Cairo told Amnesty International that he was tortured after he was arrested at about 1500hrs on 3 February 2011 by soldiers near Tahrir Square:

�I was walking with a friend towards the square when soldiers stopped us and asked for our IDs. They seemed to be suspicious of my friend, because he holds a UK residence permit. They took us to the area museum which is controlled by the army and held us there in an outdoor area. After some while we were blindfolded and handcuffed and I could not see what happened to my friend. I could only hear him screaming and believe he was severely beaten. I was only slapped in the face but not severely beaten while held at the museum.

�That night we were transferred to another location about 30 minutes away from Tahrir Square. When we got out we had to lie down on the floor and were beaten. Then I was taken for interrogation where they insulted me and my family. They said things one should not say. They took off my handcuffs, because they ordered me to take off my clothes, except my underwear, but I remained blindfolded. Then they handcuffed me again and tied my legs. They put a chain or rope to my legs and lifted me up, so that my head was hanging down. From time to time they would let me down into a barrel that was filled with water. They told me to confess that I was trained by Israel or by Iran. They also put electric shocks to my body and I fainted. This continued for several hours. After the torture finished I was so exhausted that I slept for hours.

�The next day I was taken in a group of about 30 people to another location, which � as I learned later � was Sign al-Harbi [a military prison at El Heiksteb, northeast of Cairo]. When we got out of the vehicle our blindfolds were taken off and soldiers started beating us with whips and truncheons. There are still scares on my back from the beatings. We were lead to our cells where I soon fell asleep. They kept beating us, including when we went to the bathroom. The last days of my detention I refused to eat to protest against the treatment. Finally we were released. They left us on the road to Cairo and told us to walk back.�

He was released with hundreds of other detainees from the military prison on 10 February 2011. Amnesty International delegates interviewed him several days later when scars were still visible on his back.

During an era in which Americans have been told that the threat from terrorism should be preeminent among this nation�s national security concerns, the gravest omission in public debate on this issue has been consideration of the relationship between state-sanctioned brutality and terrorism.

We have been led to believe that terrorism arising in the Middle East is spawned by extremist Islamist ideology while overlooking its much more transparent secular roots: the willingness of autocratic rulers to use violence as an instrumental and indispensable tool through which they can exercise and sustain their power.

When the word �stability� gets bandied around as though it was describing a condition of civic calmness and social order, we should remember that when someone has a gun pointed to their head they are able to sit in perfect stillness � this is stability under the threat of violence, the condition in which most people in the Middle East have lived for generations.

Where violence provides the backbone of governance, should we be surprised that similar forms of brutality would be adopted by some individuals and groups that want to challenge their rulers? And should we imagine that when these rulers are counted as America�s friends, that the US could provide its support with impunity?

What we should really marvel at is the fact that people across the region are now rising in their thousands driven, in part, by the audacious idea that non-violence can overcome violence.

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Posted: Feb 17 2011, 06:45 PM

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US officials express alarm over Bahrain crackdown

QUOTE

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press
5:47 pm EST Thu 17 Feb 2011

WASHINGTON � Confronting multiple crises across the Middle East, the Obama administration reprimanded key ally Bahrain on Thursday for a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters inspired by the fall of the longtime autocratic leader in Egypt.

The United States also moved to support efforts to erect a new democracy in Egypt by redirecting some of the money once intended for the ousted government of Hosni Mubarak.

As with Egypt, the Bahrain crisis pointed up the limits of U.S. influence over the political upheaval that has spread rapidly and sometimes unpredictably. Despite billions in aid to strategic peacemaker Egypt and the presence of a major military base housed in usually placid Bahrain, the U.S. could do little more than admonish urge restraint.

The White House expressed the administration's "strong displeasure" and alarm at developments in Bahrain, the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom that is home to the sprawling U.S. Navy base that would be the headquarters for any future American conflict with Iran.

At the same time, on a separate front, the administration engaged in furious last-minute diplomacy to stop the Palestinians from forcing a vote on a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel. If passed, the measure would infuriate the closest friend the United States has in the region and if rejected could further inflame already soaring tensions throughout the Arab world.

President Barack Obama called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but neither the White House nor the Palestinians gave a detailed account of the 50-minute call.

As for Bahrain, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama supports peaceful protesters but, as in Egypt, does not want to dictate a political outcome.

That message was also delivered by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates who spoke with their counterparts in Bahrain, the longtime headquarters of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet and an anchor of U.S. defense strategy in the Mideast.

Clinton spoke with Foreign Minister Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, to register Washington's shock and concern about the crackdown overnight. Army patrols and tanks locked down the capital of the kingdom after riot police fired tear gas and beat demonstrators who were demanding political changes. At least four people were killed.

Clinton told reporters she "directly conveyed our deep concerns about the actions of the security forces." She noted that there would be funerals and prayer meetings on Friday and said she had expressed hope they "not be marred by violence."

She said Bahrain had long been a friend and ally and "we call on restraint from the government to keep its commitment to hold accountable those who have utilized excessive force against peaceful demonstrators, and we urge a return to a process that will result in real, meaningful changes for the people there."

Gates spoke by phone Thursday morning with Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain, deputy commander of Bahraini defense forces, said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. He gave no details about what Gates said, except that he "discussed the current security situation" with the prince.

Later, Gates told lawmakers the U.S. has been encouraging reforms in the region for some time.

"The truth is I think the U.S. has consistently � primarily privately, but also publicly � encouraged these regimes for years to undertake political and economic reforms because the pressures were building," Gates told a budget hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "And now they need to move on with it and there is an urgency to this."

Also on Capitol Hill, Clinton gave lawmakers a classified briefing on developments around the Middle East and said the administration would redirect $150 million of $1.5 billion in U.S. aid money to Egypt "to put ourselves in a position to support the transition there and assist with their economic recovery."

She said senior State Department and White House officials would travel to Egypt next week "to consult on how we can most effectively deploy our assistance."

Elsewhere in the Middle East on Thursday, several thousand Yemeni protesters defied appeals for calm from the military and the country's most influential Islamic cleric and marched through the capital. And in Libya, protesters seeking to oust longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi defied a crackdown and took to the streets in four cities.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Abrams contributed to this report

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Posted: Feb 17 2011, 06:48 PM

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Bahrain locked down after 5 protesters killed

QUOTE

By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI and BARBARA SURK, Associated Press
5:42 pm EST Thu 17 Feb 2011

MANAMA, Bahrain � Bahrain's leaders banned public gatherings and sent tanks into the streets Thursday, intensifying a crackdown that killed five anti-government protesters, wounded more than 200 and turned a hospital into a cauldron of anguish and rage against the monarchy.

Bahrain's streets were mostly empty after the bloody clampdown, but thousands defied authorities by marching in cities in Libya and Yemen as the wave of political unrest continued in the wake of uprisings that toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.

The tiny kingdom of Bahrain is a key part of Washington's military counterbalance to Iran by hosting the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. Bahrain's rulers and their Arab allies depict any sign of unrest among their Shiite populations as a move by neighboring Shiite-majority Iran to expand its clout in the region.

While part of the recent revolt in the Arab world, the underlying tensions in Bahrain are decades old and pit the majority Shiites against the Sunni elite.

After allowing several days of rallies in the capital of Manama by disaffected Shiites, the island nation's Sunni rulers unleashed riot police who stormed a protest encampment in Pearl Square before dawn, firing tear gas, beating demonstrators or blasting them with shotgun sprays of birdshot. Along with two who died in clashes with police Monday, the new killings brought the death toll this week in Bahrain to seven.

The willingness to resort to violence against largely peaceful demonstrators was a sign of how deeply the monarchy fears the repercussions of a prolonged wave of protests.

In the government's first public comment on the crackdown, Foreign Minister Khalid Al Khalifa said it was necessary because the demonstrators were "polarizing the country" and pushing it to the "brink of the sectarian abyss."

Speaking to reporters after an emergency meeting with his Gulf counterparts in Manama to discuss the unrest, he called the violence "regrettable," said the deaths would be investigated and added that authorities chose to clear the square by force at 3 a.m. � when the fewest number of people would be in the square � "to minimize any possibility of casualties."

Many of the protesters were sleeping and said they received little warning of the assault.

In the wake of the bloodshed, angry demonstrators who milled around one hospital for treatment or to transport wounded friends and relatives chanted: "The regime must go!"

They stomped on and burned pictures of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa outside the emergency ward at Salmaniya Medical Complex, the main hospital where most of the casualties were taken.

"We are even angrier now," shouted Makki Abu Taki, after viewing the birdshot-riddled body of his son in the hospital morgue. "They think they can clamp down on us, but they have made us angrier. We will take to the streets in larger numbers and honor our martyrs. The time for Al Khalifa has ended."

The Obama administration expressed alarm over the violent crackdown. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the foreign minister to register Washington's "deep concern" and urge restraint. Similar criticism came from Britain and the European Union, and Human Rights Watch urged Bahraini authorities to order security forces to stop attacks on peaceful protesters.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the U.S. has been encouraging reforms in the region for some time.

"The truth is I think the U.S. has consistently � primarily privately, but also publicly � encouraged these regimes for years to undertake political and economic reforms because the pressures were building," Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "And now they need to move on with it and there is an urgency to this."

Analysts said the wave of unrest has so concerned leaders in the Gulf that they are willing to risk bloodshed.

"It was one thing when it was happening in Tunisia and Egypt and another when it arrives on their doorstep," said Toby Jones, an expert on Bahrain at Rutgers University. "The (Gulf rulers) are closing ranks now and showing how they are prepared to deal with challenges to their power. Their first instinct is to act quickly. It may be messy, but they don't want this to linger.

"They see that (if) it can happen in Bahrain, it could happen anywhere � something that was unthinkable just weeks ago," Jones added.

The protesters 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 make up 70 percent of Bahrain's 500,000 citizens but claim they face systematic discrimination and poverty and are effectively blocked from key roles in public service and the military.

The protests began with calls for the country's Sunni monarchy to loosen its grip but the demands have steadily grown bolder. Many protesters called for the government to provide more jobs and better housing, free all political detainees and abolish the system that offers Bahraini citizenship to Sunnis from around the Middle East.

Increasingly, protesters also chanted slogans to wipe away the entire ruling dynasty that has led Bahrain for more than 200 years and is firmly backed by the Sunni sheiks and monarchs across the Gulf.

Shiites have clashed with police before in protests over their complaints. But the growing numbers of Sunnis joining the latest protests have come as a surprise to authorities, said Simon Henderson, a Gulf specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"The Sunnis seem to increasingly dislike what is a very paternalistic government," he said, adding that the crackdown was "symptomatic" of Gulf nations' response to crises. "As far as the Gulf rulers are concerned, there's only one proper way with this and that is: be tough and be tough early."

Manama was effectively shut down. For the first time in the crisis, tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled into the streets and military checkpoints were set up. The Interior Ministry warned Bahrainis in mobile phone text messages to stay off the streets. Banks and other key institutions did not open, and workers stayed home, unable or to afraid to pass through checkpoints to get to their jobs.

Bahrain's parliament � minus opposition lawmakers who are staging a boycott � met in emergency session. One pro-government member, Jamila Salman, broke into tears. A leader of the Shiite opposition Abdul-Jalil Khalil said 18 lawmakers resigned to protest the killings.

Hours after the square was cleared, the military announced a ban on gatherings and said on state TV that it had "key parts" of the capital under its control.

Police prevented people from getting close to the square, which features a 300-foot (90-meter) monument with a giant representation of a pearl atop it, a testament to the island's pearl-diving past.

The smashed tents, broken chairs and other debris that was swept up by authorities was seen dumped in the yard of a police station.

Salmaniya hospital was thrown into chaos immediately after the police raid. A steady stream of dozens of wounded from the square were brought in by ambulances and private cars. Nurses rushed in men and women on stretchers, their heads bleeding, arms in casts, faces bruised. At the entrance, women wrapped in black robes embraced each other and wept.

The Health Ministry put the number of wounded at 231.

Many families were separated in the chaos. An Associated Press photographer saw police rounding up lost children and taking them into vehicles.

Britain said it was urgently reviewing arms export licenses to Bahrain. Exports approved in the past nine months include tear gas cartridges and other equipment that can be used for riot control, and the Foreign Office's Middle East and North Africa minister Alistair Burt said it will revoke the licenses if they are judged to be used for facilitating internal repression and human rights abuses.

Elsewhere in the Mideast, several thousand Yemeni protesters defied appeals for calm from the military and the country's most influential Islamic cleric and marched through the capital of Sanaa, clashing with police and government supporters swinging batons and daggers.

Protesters have marched for seven straight days in Sanaa and other cities in Yemen. They demand the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a U.S. ally, who has ruled the Arab world's poorest nation for 32 years. The demonstrators' main grievances are poverty and official corruption. Saleh's promises not to run for re-election in 2013 or to set up his son as an heir have failed to quell the anger.

Libyans seeking to oust longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi demonstrated in five cities, defying a crackdown by security forces. Reports emerged that at least 20 demonstrators have been killed in two days of clashes with pro-government groups and security forces. A U.S. rights group said at least 14 people have been arrested. In the capital of Tripoli, government supporters staged counterdemonstrations.

The Bahrain violence forced the cancellation of a lower-tier open-wheel race in Bahrain for Friday and Saturday, and leaves in doubt the March 13 season-opening Formula One race at the same track. Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone said he will wait until next week to decide whether to proceed with the race. He spoke Thursday to Crown Prince Sheik Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa about the situation.

___

Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

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Posted: Feb 17 2011, 07:54 PM

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QUOTE

Bahrain Army in Charge After Police Shoot Protesters
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN 4:40 PM ET

As the army asserted control of the streets with tanks and soldiers, the once-peaceful protesters transformed into a mob of angry mourners after at least five were killed.

Bahrain Army in Charge After Police Shoot Protesters

QUOTE

The New York Times

February 17, 2011
Bahrain Army in Charge After Police Shoot Protesters
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

MANAMA, Bahrain � The army took control of this city on Thursday, except at the main hospital, where thousands of people gathered screaming, crying, collapsing in grief, just hours after the police opened fired with birdshot, rubber bullets and tear gas on pro-democracy demonstrators camped in Pearl Square.

As the army asserted control of the streets with tanks and heavily armed soldiers, the once peaceful protesters were transformed into a mob of angry mourners chanting slogans like �death to the king,� while the opposition withdrew from the Parliament and demanded that the government step down.

But for those who were in Pearl Square in the early morning hours, when the police opened fired without warning on thousands who were sleeping there, it was a day of shock and disbelief. Many of the hundreds taken to the hospital were wounded by shotgun blasts, doctors said, their bodies speckled with pellets or bruised by rubber bullets or police clubs.

In the morning, there were three bodies already stretched out on metal tables in the morgue at Salmaniya Medical Complex: Ali Mansour Ahmed Khudair, 53, dead, with 91 pellets pulled from his chest and side; Isa Abd Hassan, 55, dead, his head split in half; Mahmoud Makki Abutaki, 22, dead, 200 pellets of birdshot pulled from his chest and arms.

Doctors said that at least two others had died and that several patients were in critical condition with serious wounds. Muhammad al-Maskati, of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, said that he had received at least 20 calls from frantic parents searching for young children lost in the chaos of the attack.

A surgeon, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, said that for hours on Thursday the Health Ministry prevented ambulances even from going to the scene to aid victims. The doctor said that in the early morning, when the assault was still under way, police officers beat a paramedic and a doctor and refused to allow medical staff to attend to the injured.

�They refused to let ambulances into the roundabout to help the injured,� the doctor said.

News outlets in Bahrain reported that the health minister, Faisal al-Hamar, resigned after doctors staged a demonstration to protest his order barring ambulances from going to the square.

In the bloodstained morgue, Ahmed Abutaki, 29, held his younger brother�s cold hand, stroking his arm and tearfully recalling the last time they spoke Wednesday night. �He said, �This is my chance, to have a say, so that maybe our country will do something for us,�� he recalled of his brother�s decision to camp out in Pearl Square. �My country did do something; it killed him.�

Emotions ran high in this small Persian Gulf nation, even as the foreign minister, Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, defended the police action as a last resort meant to pull Bahrain back from the �brink of a sectarian abyss.� Tanks rolled into the city center, many stores remained closed, sidewalks and public spaces stayed eerily empty.

There was a collective anxiety gripping the country as it waited to see whether the opposition would challenge the government�s edict to stay off the streets, and if it did, whether the government would follow through on its threat to use �every strict measure and deterrent necessary to preserve security and general order.�

There seemed little chance for now that the confrontation would fade away, as both sides said they would not back down.

�You will find members of Al Wefaq willing to be killed as our people have been killed,� said Khalil Ebrahim al-Marzooq, one of 18 opposition party members to announce Thursday that they had resigned their seats in Parliament. �We will stand behind the people until the complete fulfillment of our demands.�

Arab leaders have been badly shaken in recent days, with entrenched presidents in Egypt and Tunisia ousted by popular uprisings and with demonstrations flaring around the region. And now as the public�s sense of empowerment spread, the call to change has reached into this Persian Gulf kingdom. That has raised anxiety in Saudi Arabia, connected to Bahrain by a bridge, and Kuwait, as well, both Sunni-governed states with restive Shiite populations. Officials from the Gulf Cooperation Council met here to discuss how to handle the crisis.

The international community also weighed in, concerned as yet another Arab leader decided to try using lethal force to put down peaceful opposition protests. Bahrain is small, but it is a strategic ally of the United States, which bases its Fifth Fleet here, and the royal family has long been an ally in efforts to fight terrorism and push back the regional influence of Iran.

But here in the streets, people were not focused on geopolitics. The events centered on very domestic demands for democracy, rule of law and social justice. The island nation is 70 percent Shiite and is governed by a king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, who is Sunni. When protests started on Monday, the demands were for a constitutional monarchy, but in the anger of the day the chants evolved into calls for tearing down the whole system.

�Death to Khalifa! Death to Khalifa!� chanted a frantic crowd massed in the driveway of the hospital. �Bring down the government!� cried out the thousands of men and women. Several people collapsed, their eyes rolling back, in the frenzied moment.

The fearful and hostile mood was set the night before, when the police opened fire. Doctors, victims and witnesses gave a detailed account of how the police assault unfolded, revealing details of a calculated, coordinated attack that closed in from all sides, offering no way out.

�They had encircled us and they kept shooting tear gas and live rounds,� said Ali Muhammad Abdel Nabi, 25, as he rested in a hospital bed after having been hit by shotgun pellets on both his legs and his shoulder. �The circle got closer and closer.�

Doctors at the hospital said that 226 demonstrators had been recorded as being treated in the hospital and that many more were given aid on the run.

At the scene, the doctors said protesters were handcuffed with thick plastic binders, laid on the wet ground and stomped on by the police.

�I said, they will attack, and they did,� said Hussein Mohammed, 39, a member of Al Wefaq. �It�s a slaughter.�

The hospital corridors were packed with people angry and crying, the beds filled with many wounded by shotgun blasts. Hassan Mohammed, 19, who also had shotgun pellets in his legs, said that after the assault he saw uniformed men tossing the wounded into refrigerator trucks, though he had no idea where they were taken. There was no way to confirm his account.

Outside the hospital, the police stayed away, as the fuming crowd of mourners remained on the medical campus. But not far away, in the symbolic center of the city, beneath the towering statue of a pearl on a setting, soldiers patrolled, armored vehicles blocked all arteries, and a circle of barbed wire was laid around the square. Within 24 hours, the site of the first tolerated expression of public dissent had been transformed into a memorial to fear and death.

�We are a people of mourners now, we have nothing,� said Taghreed Hussein, 35, as she and her friends crowded the hospital waiting in grief.

Nadim Audi contributed reporting.

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Posted: Feb 17 2011, 08:03 PM

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Blood Runs Through the Streets of Bahrain

QUOTE

The New York Times

February 17, 2011
Blood Runs Through the Streets of Bahrain
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

MANAMA, Bahrain

As a reporter, you sometimes become numbed to sadness. But it is heartbreaking to be in modern, moderate Bahrain right now and watch as a critical American ally uses tanks, troops, guns and clubs to crush a peaceful democracy movement and then lie about it.

This kind of brutal repression is normally confined to remote and backward nations, but this is Bahrain. An international banking center. The home of an important American naval base, the Fifth Fleet. A wealthy and well-educated nation with a large middle class and cosmopolitan values.

To be here and see corpses of protesters with gunshot wounds, to hear an eyewitness account of an execution of a handcuffed protester, to interview paramedics who say they were beaten for trying to treat the injured � yes, all that just breaks my heart.

So here�s what happened.

The pro-democracy movement has bubbled for decades in Bahrain, but it found new strength after the overthrow of the dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt. Then the Bahrain government attacked the protesters early this week with stunning brutality, firing tear gas, rubber bullets and shotgun pellets at small groups of peaceful, unarmed demonstrators. Two demonstrators were killed (one while walking in a funeral procession), and widespread public outrage gave a huge boost to the democracy movement.

King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa initially pulled the police back, but early on Thursday morning he sent in the riot police, who went in with guns blazing. Bahrain television has claimed that the protesters were armed with swords and threatening security. That�s preposterous. I was on the roundabout earlier that night and saw many thousands of people, including large numbers of women and children, even babies. Many were asleep.

I was not there at the time of the attack, but afterward, at the main hospital (one of at least three to receive casualties), I saw the effects. More than 600 people were treated with injuries, overwhelmingly men but including small numbers of women and children.

One nurse told me that she was on the roundabout, known as Pearl Square, and saw a young man of about 24, handcuffed and then beaten by a group of police. She said she then watched as they executed him at point-blank range with a gun. The nurse told me her name, but I will not use full names of some people in this column to avoid putting them at greater risk.

I met one doctor, Sadiq al-Ekri, who was lying in a hospital bed with a broken nose and injuries to his eyes and almost his entire body. He couldn�t speak to me because he was still unconscious and on oxygen, after what colleagues and his family described as a savage beating by riot police outraged that he was treating people at the roundabout.

Dr. Ekri, a distinguished plastic surgeon, had just returned from a trip to Houston. He identified himself as a physician to the riot police, according to other doctors and family members, based partly on what Dr. Ekri, 44, told them before he lost consciousness. But then, they said, the riot police handcuffed him and began beating him with sticks and kicking him while shouting insults against Shiites. Finally, they said, the police pulled down his pants and threatened to rape him, although that idea was abandoned and an ambulance eventually was allowed to rescue him.

�He went to help people,� said his father, who was at the bedside. �It�s his duty to help people. And then this happened.�

Three ambulance drivers or paramedics told me that they had been pulled out of their ambulances and beaten by the police. One, Jameel, whose head was bandaged and his arm was in a cast, told me that police had clubbed him and that a senior officer had then told him: �If I see you again, I�ll kill you.�

A fourth ambulance driver, Osama, was unhurt but said that a military officer � who he said he believed to be a Saudi, based on his accent in Arabic � held a gun to his head and warned him to drive away or be shot. (By many accounts, Saudi tanks and other military forces participated in the attack, but I can�t verify that).

The hospital staff told me that ambulance service has now been frozen, with no ambulances going out on calls except with approval of the Interior Ministry.

Some of the victims, though not all, said that the riot police shouted anti-Shiite curses when they attacked the protesters, who were overwhelmingly Shiite. Sectarianism is particularly delicate in Bahrain because the Sunni royal family, the Khalifas, presides over a country that is predominately Shiite, and Shiites often complain of discrimination by the government.

Hospital corridors were also full of frantic mothers searching desperately for children who had gone missing in the attack.

In the hospital mortuary, I found three corpses with gunshot wounds. One man had much of his head blown off with what mortuary staff said was a gunshot wound. Ahmed Abutaki, a 29-year-old laborer, stood by the body of his 22-year-old brother, Mahmood, who died of a shotgun blast.

Ahmed said he blamed King Hamad, and many other protesters at the hospital were also demanding the ouster of the king. I think he has a point. When a king opens fire on his people, he no longer deserves to be ruler. That might be the only way to purge this land of ineffable heartbreak.

�

I invite you to comment on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me while I am in Bahrain on Twitter.

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Posted: Feb 17 2011, 08:25 PM

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Pentagon Watching Unrest in Bahrain

QUOTE

The New York Times

February 17, 2011
Pentagon Watching Unrest in Bahrain
By THOM SHANKER and J. DAVID GOODMAN

WASHINGTON � The United States Navy headquarters in Bahrain, the tiny Persian Gulf nation whose capital was rocked Thursday by a violent police crackdown on antigovernment protesters, oversees warships and combat aircraft that carry out long-range missions across Afghanistan and Iraq, conduct antipiracy patrols off the Horn of Africa � and keep a wary eye on the activities of a bellicose Iran.

But the Fifth Fleet compound itself looks like little more than a modern office park in a quiet neighborhood of Manama, the capital, whose piers occasionally host a warship but never a sustained presence of hulking vessels comparable to bases in, say, Norfolk, Va., or Yokosuka, Japan.

Day by day, the Fifth Fleet is at sea and in the air, across 2.5 million square miles of water.

In Manama, a city that is more open and socially welcoming to foreigners than those in much of the restrictive Arab world, American personnel live out in the community, and not in isolation.

And thus far, Navy officers are quick to point out, the street protests have given voice to a disenfranchised Shiite majority�s complaints about Bahrain�s leadership � but the United States has not been cast as a villain, despite six decades of close ties with the governing Sunni elite.

�We are monitoring what�s going on,� said Cmdr. Amy Derrick-Frost, the Fifth Fleet spokeswoman. �The protests and demonstrations are not against the United States or the United States military or anything of that nature.�

Military personnel, Defense Department civilians, contractors and their families � numbering about 6,100 in total � have been advised to avoid areas where the protests were taking place, but as of late Thursday there was no order to evacuate dependents.

�We do not have any information at this time that suggests that planned protests are likely to cause significant disruptions,� said Jennifer Stride, a spokeswoman for the Naval Support Activity, which oversees the military complex. �We will continue to monitor the situation.�

The Navy has had a presence in Bahrain since Franklin Roosevelt�s presidency, well before it took over a British army base east of Manama, in 1971, when the country achieved full independence.

The 100-acre naval base is in Juffair, a suburb six miles from Pearl Square in the center of the capital, where thousands of mostly Shiite protesters were attacked by security forces early Thursday morning.

Though the base is physically separated from its piers, Ms. Stride said there was �no concern� about being cut off if protests were to widen. �There are no demonstrations at all in the vicinity of the base or those piers,� she said.

The broad mission of the Fifth Fleet includes combat, counterterrorism, air support for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, antipiracy efforts and military exercises with regional allies, including Bahrain.

Much of the fleet�s time is spent watching Iran�s two navies � the more professional Iranian state fleet and the less predictable Republican Guard navy that has harassed American warships in recent years.

The United States and Bahrain signed a 10-year defense pact in 1991 that includes American training of Bahraini forces; it was renewed in 2001, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

�Bahrain has few external security options other than relying on some degree of U.S. security guarantee,� said a study by the research service released last month. �The United States has designated Bahrain as a �major non-NATO ally,� and it provides small amounts of security assistance to Bahrain.�

The Fifth Fleet�s area of responsibility includes waters that touch 20 countries along the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Oman and parts of the Indian Ocean. The area includes the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal and the Strait of Bab el Mandeb at the southern tip of Yemen � all strategic passages for international shipping.

�As a longtime ally and home to the U.S. Navy�s Fifth Fleet, Bahrain is an important partner and the department is closely watching developments there,� said Col. David Lapan of the Marine Corps, a Pentagon spokesman. �We also call on all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from violence.�

Thom Shanker reported from Washington, and J. David Goodman from New York.

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Posted: Feb 18 2011, 10:39 AM

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Bahrain Shiites Withdraw from Parliament, Call for King�s Overthrow

QUOTE

Posted on 02/18/2011 by Juan Cole | Informed Comment

Members of parliament from the Shiite Wifaq Party, which had 18 of 40 seats in the lower house of the Bahrain legislature, have resigned en masse from their positions. They were objecting thereby to the deaths so far of 5 protesters and the brutal crackdown on peaceful demonstrators early on Thursday morning by government security forces.

Streets were empty late Thursday in Manama, in the wake of the clearing of the downtown Pearl roundabout of demonstrators by security police, who took down their tents.

Euronews in Arabic reports that the Bahrain army stationed tanks in downtown Manama and then announced a �Communique No. 1′ in which they pledged (or threatened) to use decisive force to establish �order� in the country (i.e. no more big demonstrations will be tolerated).

In the meantime, physicians and nurses demonstrated at having been prevented from treating in the field the hundreds of injured after the crackdown on Thursday morning.

Friday morning, a small group of 200 mourners came out for the funeral in a village of protesters killed by security police on Thursday. They chanted slogans calling for the overthrow of the Sunni monarchy.

Both the withdrawal of Wifaq from the government and the turn of chanting to anti-monarchy slogans are very bad signs for national cohesion. The Shiites of Bahrain, about 70% of the citizen population, have now largely withdrawn from the body politic, remaining only as disenfranchised and sullen subjects of a monarchy many can no longer abide. Many Shiites are saying that the government, by attacking peaceful protesters, has lost all credibility.

Aljazeera English has video on Thursday�s violent crackdown:

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Posted: Feb 18 2011, 02:22 PM

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Bahrain forces fire on protesters; 50 injured

QUOTE

By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated Press
2:11 pm EST Fri 18 Feb 2011

MANAMA, Bahrain � Soldiers opened fire Friday on thousands of protesters defying a government ban and streaming toward the landmark square that had been the symbolic center of the uprising to break the political grip of the Gulf nation's leaders.

Officials at the main Salmaniya hospital said at least 50 people were injured, some with gunshot wounds. Some doctors and medics on emergency medical teams were in tears as they tended to the wounded. X-rays showed bullets still lodged inside victims.

"This is a war," said Dr. Bassem Deif, an orthopedic surgeon examining people with bullet-shattered bones.

Protesters described a chaotic scene of tear gas clouds, bullets coming from many directions and people slipping in pools of blood as they sought cover. Some claimed the gunfire came from either helicopters or sniper nests, a day after riot police swept through the protest encampment in Pearl Square, killing at least five people and razing the tents and makeshift shelters that were inspired by the demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

An Associated Press cameraman saw army units shooting anti-aircraft weapons, fitted on top of armored personnel carriers, above the protesters, in apparent warning shots and attempts to drive them back from security cordons about 200 yards (200 meters) from the square.

Then the soldiers turned firearms on the crowd, one marcher said.

"People started running in all directions and bullets were flying," said Ali al-Haji, a 27-year-old bank clerk. "I saw people getting shot in the legs, chest, and one man was bleeding from his head."

"My eyes were full of tear gas, there was shooting and there was a lot of panic," said Mohammed Abdullah, a 37-year-old businessman taking part in the protest.

The clash came hours after funeral mourners and worshippers at Friday prayers called for the toppling of the Western-allied monarchy in the tiny island nation that is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, the centerpiece of the Pentagon's efforts to confront Iranian military influence. Some members of Bahrain's Sunni ruling system worry that Shiite powerhouse Iran could use Bahrain's majority Shiites as a further foothold in the region.

U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the reports of violence against the protesters in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen, urging government restraint.

"I am deeply concerned about reports of violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries and wherever else it may occur," Obama said. "The United States urges the governments of Bahrain, Libya and Yemen to show restraint in responding to peaceful protests and to respect the rights of their people."

Day by day, the crisis in Bahrain has deepened.

The cries against the king and his inner circle � at a main Shiite mosque and at burials for those killed in Thursday's crushing attack � reflect a sharp escalation of the political uprising, which began with calls to weaken the Sunni monarchy's power and address claims of discrimination against the Shiite majority.

The mood, however, has turned toward defiance of the entire ruling system after the brutal crackdown on a protest encampment in Bahrain's capital, Manama, which put the nation under emergency-style footing with military forces in key areas and checkpoints on main roads.

"The regime has broken something inside of me. ... All of these people gathered today have had something broken in them," said Ahmed Makki Abu Taki at the funeral for his 23-year-old brother, Mahmoud, who was killed in the pre-dawn sweep through Pearl Square. "We used to demand for the prime minister to step down, but now our demand is for the ruling family to get out."

At a Shiite mosque in the village of Diraz, an anti-government hotbed, imam Isa Qassim called the Pearl Square assault a "massacre" and thousands of worshippers chanted: "The regime must go."

In a sign of Bahrain's deep divisions, government loyalists filled Manama's Grand Mosque to hear words of support for the monarchy and take part in a post-sermon march protected by security forces. Many arrived with Bahraini flags draped over the traditional white robes worn by Gulf men. Portraits of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa were distributed.

"We must protect our country," said Adnan al-Qattan, the cleric leading prayers. "We are living in dangerous times."

He denounced attempts to "open the doors to evil and foreign influences" � an apparent reference to suspicions that Shiite powerhouse Iran could take advantages of any gains by Bahrain's Shiites, who account for about 70 percent of the population.

The pro-government gathering had many nonnative Bahrainis, including South Asians and Sunni Arabs from around the region. Shiite have long complained of policies giving Sunnis citizenship and jobs, including posts in security forces, to offset the Shiite majority.

Outside a Shiite village mosque, several thousand mourners gathered to bury three of the men killed in the crackdown. The first body, covered in black velvet, was passed hand to hand toward a grave as it was being dug.

Amid the Shiite funeral rites, many chanted for the removal of the king and the entire Sunni dynasty that has ruled for more than two centuries in Bahrain � the first nation in the Gulf to feel the pressure for changes sweeping the Arab world.

"Our demands were peaceful and simple at first. We wanted the prime minister to step down,' Mohamed Ali, a 40-year-old civil servant, said as he choked back tears. "Now the demands are harsher and have reached the pinnacle of the pyramid. We want the whole government to fall."

In Manama, soldiers placed roadblocks and barbed wire around Pearl Square and other potential gathering sites. Work crews tried to cover up protest graffiti.

In another funeral in the Shiite village of Karzkan, opposition leaders urged protesters to keep up their fight but not to seek revenge.

"We know they have weapons and they are trying to drag us into violence," said Sheik Ali Salman, the leader of the largest Shiite party, Al Wefaq, whose 18 lawmakers have resigned in protest from the 40-seat parliament.

On Thursday, Bahrain's leaders banned public gatherings. But the underlying tensions in Bahrain run even deeper than the rebellions for democracy that began two months ago in Tunisia and later swept away Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and are challenging old-guard regimes in Libya and Yemen.

Foreign Minister Khalid Al Khalifa said the crackdown was necessary because the demonstrators were "polarizing the country" and pushing it to the "brink of the sectarian abyss."

Speaking to reporters after an emergency meeting with his Gulf counterparts in Manama, he called the violence "regrettable," said the deaths would be investigated and added that authorities chose to clear the square by force at 3 a.m. � when the fewest number of people would be in the square � "to minimize any possibility of casualties."

Many protesters were sleeping and said they received little warning of the assault. More than 230 people were injured, some seriously.

In Geneva, Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the response of some governments in the Middle East and Africa to the demands of their people was "illegal and excessively heavy-handed," and she condemned the use of military-grade shotguns by security forces in Bahrain. The European Union and Human Rights Watch urged Bahrain to order security forces to stop attacks on peaceful protesters.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Washington must expand efforts for political and economic reforms in places such as Bahrain. "There is an urgency to this," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

WikiLeaks, the secret-sharing website, has released new State Department cables detailing basic Bahraini foreign policy and concerns about regional powerhouse Iran. One intriguing cable consists of questions sent by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, asking the embassy to evaluate the leadership potential of the country's top princes.

The cable includes questions about relationships between the princes, their influence on government, views of the United States and whether any of them have histories of drug or alcohol use. There is no record of any answers.

The protesters had called for the monarchy to give up control over top government posts and all critical decisions and address deep grievances by Shiites, who claim they face systematic discrimination and poverty and are blocked from key roles in public service and the military.

Shiites have clashed with police before over their complaints, including in the 1990s. But the growing numbers of Sunnis joining the latest demonstrations surprised authorities, said Simon Henderson, a Gulf specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"The Sunnis seem to increasingly dislike what is a very paternalistic government," he said. "As far as the Gulf rulers are concerned, there's only one proper way with this and that is: be tough and be tough early."

The Bahrain violence forced the cancellation of a lower-tier open-wheel race in Bahrain for Friday and Saturday, and leaves in doubt the March 13 season-opening Formula One race at the same track.

Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone told the BBC he will decide next week whether to proceed with the race. On Friday, he said he hoped the event can be run as scheduled.

___

Barbara Surk in Manama and Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

synergy

Posted: Feb 18 2011, 04:53 PM

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Bahrain royal family orders army to turn on the people

QUOTE

Telegraph.co.uk

Bahrain's ruling family has defied mounting international criticism by ordering the army to turn on its people for the first time since pro-reform demonstrations erupted five days ago.

photo caption: Protesters run from a cloud of teargas during a clash with Bahraini security forces near the Pearl roundabout Photo: GETTY
Bahraini protesters pray and sit in the street

Image 1 of 2
Bahraini protesters pray and sit in the street facing army tanks, unseen, while ambulances behind them take wounded demonstrators to hospital Photo: AP

By Adrian Blomfield in Manama 8:32PM GMT 18 Feb 2011

As protesters attempted to converge on Pearl Roundabout, a landmark in the capital Manama that has become the principal rallying point of the uprising, soldiers stationed in a nearby skyscraper opened fire.

Since they took to the streets, Bahrain's protesters have come to expect violence and even death at the hands of the kingdom's security forces. At least five people were killed before yesterday's protests.

But this was on a different scale of magnitude.

As they drew near, they were met first with tear gas and then with bursts of live ammunition.

Many fled the first salvoes, scrambling down empty streets as the shots rang out behind them.

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As they ran, terror and disbelief flashed across their faces. One man shouted: "They are killing our people! They are killing our people."

Cowering behind a wall, a woman wept, her body shaking in fear.

But many refused to run, initially at least, determined to defy the violence being visited upon them. Some held their hands in the air and shouted "Peaceful! Peaceful!".

The shooting resumed. One man crumpled to the ground, blood pouring from his leg; nearby a second was also felled. A scream went up: "live ammunition!"

As security forces then began to fire anti-air craft guns over their heads and the air filled with tear gas, the protesters' will finally broke.

But even as they fled in headlong panic, a helicopter sprayed gunfire at them and more fell. Paramedics from ambulances that had rushed to the scene darted forward to help the wounded, but they too were shot at. Several were detained and at least one ambulance was impounded.

Doctors at the nearby Salmaniyah hospital said they had received 32 wounded people, nine of whom were in a critical condition. There were unconfirmed reports of two deaths at Pearl Roundabout, but witnesses said the bodies had been seized by the army.

Those caught up in the violence were mourners, returning from funerals of three people killed before dawn the previous day when police opened fire on protesters, many of whom were asleep, in a successful bid to regain control of Pearl Roundabout.

Thousands thronged the body of Ali Ahmad al-Moumen as it was born aloft down the streets of Sitra, a poor Shia village near Manama.

Despite the violence, many said the death of Moumen and other protesters had only increased their determination to press ahead with the protests.

"The regime has failed to stop us," Abdulwahab Hussein, a senior Shia Muslim leader, told the crowd. "Their action shows that they are strong and we are weak."

Most of the protesters are members of Bahrain's long-marginalised Shia majority.

They say they are not demanding the abdication of Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Bahrain's Sunni king, but they are calling for a constitutional monarchy that would treat the Shia fairly and make them equal subjects in his kingdom.

But they are demanding the resignation of his uncle Khalifa bin Sulman Al Khalifa, who has served as prime minister for 39 years.

During his rule, the protesters say, the Shia have been turned into second class citizens, deprived of jobs in the army, police force and government while Sunnis from abroad have been given Bahraini citizenship to alter the kingdom's demographic balance.

Government officials in Bahrain have warned that the Shia opposition is controlled by Iran, which seeks to use the kingdom to establish a foothold on the Arabian peninsula.

Protesters insist that they have no love for Iran and are only seeking justice for themselves.

synergy

Posted: Feb 20 2011, 06:35 AM

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U.S. troops won't be eager to leave the good life in Bahrain's opulent villas

QUOTE

Haaretz.com

* Published 12:33 20.02.11
* Latest update 12:33 20.02.11

The tiny island, home for 6,000 members of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, is indeed a paradise. If you're a Sunni Muslim or a foreigner, that is.

By Zvi Bar'el

"You drive through a long desert road, pass a huge bridge and then, as if out of nowhere, a city with green gardens appears, with paved streets lined with villas and palm trees." That's the way in which a U.S. soldier described Bahrain in a letter to his parents.

Pamphlets published by the U.S. Navy go into great detail as to the favors awaiting those serving in Bahrain. You can rent, for a reasonable price, one of many wonderful villas, equipped with either open-air or indoor swimming pools, squash and tennis courts, bowling lanes, hot tubs and saunas.
Bahrain protest - Reuters - 20.2.2011

Thousands of protesters gathering in Pearl Square in the heart of the Bahraini capital of Manama, February 20, 2011.
Photo by: Reuters

There's also one of the finest education systems in the Arab world. And if that's not enough, the U.S. government pays a risk-factor bonus worth $150 a-month, along with such perks as "morale and adaptation" vacations to Europe or Thailand, servants, and special bonuses for remote service.

The tiny island which is the home of about a 1.2 million residents � aside from the 6,000 members of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, who also call it home � is indeed a paradise. If you're a Sunni Muslim or a foreigner, that is.

That's because the constitutional monarchy, which is how the island's ruler Shaikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa likes to call it, isn't completely Bahraini. About half its population is made up of foreigners, the biggest community being the country's 290,000 Indian residents, alongside a tiny Jewish minority made up mostly by jewel traders.

Even three out of the king's four wives aren�t Bahraini. Two hail from Qatar, another from Kuwait, with the only members of the local monarchy being the mother of the kingdom's heir to the throne.

Within the Muslim population, 67 percent are Shi'ite, with Sunnis comprising the other 33 percent. This is another reason for recent violent protests in the kingdom, for the king treats the Shi'ite majority like a dangerous minority. When necessary, as was seen in the most recent protests, he also accuses Iran of attempting a Shi'ite overthrow of his country.

It is for those reasons that it wasn't so odd to see that pro-democracy demonstrators at the Pearl Square, most of whom were Shi'ite, pitted against a pro-monarchy demonstration comprised of Indian and Pakistani workers, who were ordered to raise the king's image alongside the kingdom's flag.

However, this isn't necessarily an ethnic dispute. In 2002, three years after assuming power from his father, Khalifa revolutionized the country's constitution, appointed himself king and ordered parliamentary elections be held. That's how Bahrain turned from an Emirate to a kingdom, and not just any kingdom at that: a democratic kingdom.

Elections for regional council heads and mayors were held in May of that year, and in October parliamentary elections were held, forming a house of representatives according to the country's new constitution: 40 representatives (which include only 18 Shi'ite) and an advisory council appointed by the king.

In addition, a constitutional court was formed, which was to judge whether or not the laws legislated by the parliament were in accordance with the country's constitution. It was also decided that men and women would have equal political rights, as well as the prohibition of any discrimination based on race, creed, or gender.

On the face of it, then, it all seems promising and fair. In reality, however, the regime handled itself in a stern and uncompromising manner. Shi'ites could not be appointed to high-ranking government or military positions; the monarchy controls the media and mans about 80 percent of all governmental positions, including the cabinet itself; and while the parliament has the power to fire ministers, such a move would require the king's authorization.

The kingdom is protected by a small army of 9,000 soldiers, but the royal family is guarded by internal intelligence, an intricate assortment of forces founded by a British officer by the name of Ian Henderson, who was in charge of suppressing the Mau Mau uprising in 1960s Kenya.

Henderson, whose modus operendi during the Kenyan revolt made him a wanted man in the U.K., is the one who advised the king to import Bedouins from Jordan and Syria in order to balance out the gap between Sunnis and Shi'ites. These new residents were immediately awarded luxury houses, generous grants and, of course, citizenship.

It is this portion of the Bahraini population that is at the center of the Shi'ites' complaints, wishing to even out their rights with those of the "newcomers."

While the king canceled the military courts, whose rulings could not be appealed, the judicial system is still led by one of the king's aides, the one who appointed Egyptian judges for senior positions in the kingdom. These are the same judges responsible for the severe sentences given to opposition members.

Over the weekend, the king offered to hold negotiations with protesters, after his tanks reoccupied the Peal Square. In the meantime, it seems that pro-democracy activists have no other choice. Here even the United States isn't on their side. It is too concerned for its naval base.
More on this topic

* Bahrain opposition mulls talks with monarchy amid continuing protests
* WikiLeaks: Bahrain FM planned to meet Israeli officials in support of peace process
* Iran official: U.S. ordered violent suppression of Mideast protests

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