Gulf tensions rise as Bahrain holds hard line on protesters

The leader of Bahrain's largest opposition group last night urged Saudi Arabia to withdraw its forces and called for a United Nations inquiry into a crackdown on mainly Shiite protesters that has raised tensions in the oil-exporting region.

Bahrain arrested seven opposition leaders yesterday, a day after its forces moved in to end weeks of pro-democracy protests that have sucked in troops from its Sunni-ruled neighbour and prompted Bahrain's king to declare martial law.

"The military should withdraw from Bahrain, the military of Saudi Arabia, and this is a call to the Saudi king," said Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the Wefaq opposition movement.

"We call for an investigation by the United Nations into what has happened from 14 February up to now. If protesters were in the wrong, then they should be held to account."

Three protesters died in the crackdown but so did three police officers, mown down by demonstrators' cars.

The crackdown has drawn sympathy protests from Shiites across the Gulf region, including the world's top oil-exporter Saudi Arabia, and Iran has complained to the UN.

Iran, which supports Shiite groups in Iraq and Lebanon, asked countries in the region to join it in urging Saudi Arabia to withdraw troops from the island state.

"How could one accept a government to invite foreign military forces to suppress its own citizens?" Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said in a letter to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, also addressed to the Arab League.

More than 60 per cent of Bahrainis are Shiites. Most say they want the same treatment as Sunnis and a constitutional monarchy, but calls by hardliners for the overthrow of the monarchy have alarmed Sunnis, who fear the unrest serves Iran.

Bahraini state TV called the detainees leaders of "civil strife" and said they had been communicating with foreign countries and inciting murder and destruction of property. It did not name the countries.

Most western nations, including Britian, have urged their citizens to leave Bahrain. However, the first of two flights chartered by the UK government to fly British citizens out of Bahrain made its journey yesterday without any passengers on board, after nobody requested a seat on the service. The Foreign Office said the flight left Bahrain at 2pm local time for nearby Dubai. The flight had been offered by the government at a price of 260 per seat, but the expected rush for places did not materialise with many people departing on commercial flights.

A second Government charter flight is due to leave Bahrain at noon local time today.

Among activists detained overnight by Bahrain were Haq leader Hassan Mushaima and Wafa leader Abdel Wahhab Hussein, who had led calls for the overthrow of the royal family, Wefaq officials said.

More moderate Wefaq had limited its demands to wide-ranging political and constitutional reform. Also arrested was Ibrahim Sharif, head of the secular leftist party Waad that signed up to the same demands as Wefaq.

In Geneva, UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay urged Bahrain to rein in its security forces, citing allegations that they had killed, beaten and carried out arbitrary arrests of protesters, and attacked medical workers.

US president Barack Obama called the kings of Saudi Arabia, a key ally of Washington, and of Bahrain, home to the US navy's fifth fleet, to urge "maximum" restraint.

• Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah will address the nation today to issue a number of decrees, the royal court said yesterday, without giving further details. The speech by the elderly king would be the first since he returned to the kingdom a month ago after back treatment in the US.