State of emergency declared in Bahrain

 MANAMA – From wire dispatches

A Bahraini nurse (R) walks Monday with anti-government protesters heading onto the streets to await Saudi forces in Manama. AP photo.

Bahrain state TV reported that a three-month state of emergency has been declared to try to quell political unrest threatening the monarchy.
The statement from Bahrain’s king said the nation’s armed forces chief is authorized to take all measures to stamp out protests that have gripped the island nation for the past month.
Tuesday’s move comes a day after Saudi-led military forces arrived to help prop up the U.S.-backed regime.
Bahrain’s Shiite majority is seeking sweeping reforms in protests against the country’s Sunni rulers.
Violence meanwhile escalated in the capital Tuesday, with wire services giving conflicting reports on alleged killings. A security official told the Associated Press that a Saudi soldier who was part of the troops deployed to Bahrain to put down an opposition uprising was shot dead Tuesday by a protester in the capital.
A Saudi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the shooting took place when a person from the crowd of protesters shot at the Saudi troops. The official said the victim, Ahmed al-Raddadi, was a sergeant in the Saudi military.
A member of Bahrain’s security forces was killed when he was run down by a protester driving a car in the country’s south, the ministry of interior said Tuesday, according to reports from Agence France-Presse.

“A member of security force passed away in Maameer this evening when deliberately run over by one of the rioters,” the ministry wrote in an English-language post on the social-networking website Twitter.

On Tuesday, Bahrain also recalled its ambassador to Iran in protest of Tehran’s “blatant interference” in its internal affairs, the state news agency reported. Iran’s foreign ministry responded, saying military intervention by Gulf troops in Bahrain was “unacceptable,” state television’s website reported.

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