Pearl Square

Beyond the hospital grounds, heavily armed police trying to secure this tiny kingdom against the contagion of unrest spreading across the Middle East manned checkpoints and grimly gripped their weapons. Within, perplexed and angry protesters insisted that they wouldn't be cowed. The night before, a bloody assault against sleeping demonstrators killed at least four people. But the front line shifted across town Thursday to the Salmaniya Medical Complex, where the dead were laid out. Doctors were treating those who had been tear-gassed, clubbed or wounded by gunfire, and an angry crowd was chanting slogans against the royal family.

Days after the Bahraini government banned demonstrations by opponents, about 2,000 residents of the mostly Shiite Muslim village of Sitra turned a funeral into the first protest under a new three-month state of emergency, a show of deepening resistance against the regime. The government has arrested more dissidents and human rights workers, destroying their homes and also beating relatives, witnesses said. Many other activists have now gone into hiding in this tiny country, their family members said.

Thousands of antigovernment protesters marched in Damascus, Homs and other Syrian cities Friday in opposition to President Bashar Assad, chanting, "These are the last days of your season. " Security forces responded by firing on protesters in several cities. Dozens of people were killed, with the toll particularly high in Hama, Syria's fourth-largest city and the site of a bloody crackdown ordered by Assad's father nearly 30 years ago. Snipers reportedly fired from rooftops at thousands of protesters.

Bands of protesters in more than a dozen villages Friday defied Bahrain security forces and the government's ban on demonstrations to press for the ouster of the country's ruling family. At least one person died, dozens were injured and some were arrested as protesters, mainly in Shiite Muslim villages, held rallies against the ruling Sunni Muslim dynasty, according to an opposition political party, human rights groups and media reports. Some protesters reportedly encountered tear gas or were shot at by security forces using birdshot.

Security forces in tiny but strategic Bahrain launched a brutal assault early Thursday against at least 1,000 defiant anti-government protesters, including children, camped out in tents in the capital's Pearl Square. At least two were killed and 50 hurt. Update, 5:53 a.m.: Death toll: Three people were killed and 231 wounded in a police operation to clear protesters from a Manama square Thursday, Bahrain's health minister said. Faisal bin Yaqoob al-Hamer told Reuters that 36 people were still being treated, including one in intensive care.

Bahrain's security forces arrested at least half a dozen opposition leaders Thursday and surrounded Shiite Muslim neighborhoods on the second day of a crackdown that, at least for now, appeared to have left the regime's opponents frightened and divided about how to respond. Opposition activists said the most prominent of those arrested were Hassan Mushaima, a hard-line Shiite leader of the Haq movement who had only weeks ago returned from London exile, and Abdul Jalil Singace, another Haq leader who had been released from prison less than a month ago. Haq has been one of the most prominent opposition groups demanding the elimination of Bahrain's Sunni monarchy.

Bahrain sentenced eight prominent activists to life in prison Wednesday in the latest crackdown on a 5-month-old rebellion in the island monarchy that has been criticized by international human rights groups for mass arrests, torture and shooting of protesters. The verdicts by a military court follow the lifting of martial law but indicate that the ruling Sunni Muslim family will not tolerate unrest from the majority Shiite Muslim population, which is demanding an end to discrimination.

Tens of thousands of protesters pressed their demands Tuesday for the dismissal of Bahrain's government, saying they would not relent until substantial reforms were enacted. The demonstrators assembled at a mall and walked to the capital's Pearl Square, which has become the center of their peaceful movement. The rally started in the late afternoon and lasted into the evening. The protest was a rebuttal to a demonstration Monday organized by the pro-government National Unity Group.

Mohamed Albuflasa was different from everyone else taking the stage on the second day of Bahrain's protests. He was a Sunni Muslim. The 34-year-old Salafist favored government reform, and he believed he should speak at the rally to promote unity among the country's Shiite Muslim majority and Sunnis at Manama's Pearl Square. Within hours, a security agency had detained him, and he has not been seen since. Even as hundreds of political prisoners were freed this week by King Hamed ibn Isa Khalifa, Albuflasa remains jailed and his whereabouts a mystery.

The continuing wave of unrest sweeping the Middle East led to a fifth day of protests Tuesday in Yemen and thousands of protesters swept into the main square of the capital of Bahrain, setting up tents and vowing to stay until the government agrees to major reforms. In Iran, hard-liners in parliament demanded that opposition leaders be executed for advocating protests that attracted tens of thousands of people. As many as a thousand anti-government protesters marched through the streets of Sana, the Yemeni capital, but it was large numbers of supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh who appeared to have the upper hand, gathering in a festival in downtown Tahrir Square with music and nationalist slogans.