Tanks patrol in Bahrain

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 caldron of anguish and rage against the monarchy.

Bahrain’s streets were mostly empty after the bloody clampdown, but elsewhere 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 raised the death toll this week in Bahrain to seven.

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 Persian 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 there, “to minimize any possibility of casualties.”

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

“I was sleeping and then I heard screaming,” protester Alla Mutawa said. “They attacked children; they used gas that choked you like you were dying.”

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.

In the morning, three bodies were on metal tables in the morgue. They were identified as: Ali Mansour Ahmed Khudair, 53, with 91 pellets pulled from his chest and side; Isa Abd Hassan, 55, with his head split in half; Mahmoud Makki Abutaki, 22, with 200 pellets of birdshot pulled from his chest and arms. Doctors said at least two other people had died and that several patients were in critical condition.

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

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.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the U.S. has been encouraging changes 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 Persian 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 [Persian Gulf rulers] areclosing 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 said.

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 grievances by the country’s majority Shiites who make up 70 percent of Bahrain’s 500,000 citizens. They claim that 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 ruling dynasty that has led Bahrain for more than 200 years and is firmly backed by the Sunni sheiks and monarchs across the Persian Gulf.

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 too 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.

The Health Ministry put the number of wounded at 231.

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

Protesters have marched for seven straight days in Sana 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.

Libyans seeking to oust longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi demonstrated in five cities, despite 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, Tripoli, government supporters staged counter demonstrations.

In Iraq, at least two protesters were killed Thursday when soldiers opened fire on stonethrowing demonstrators in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. Long-standing grievances include inadequate services, unemployment and corruption.

Information for this article was contributed by Hadeel al-Shalchi, Barbara Surk and Brian Murphy of The Associated Press; by Michael Slackman and Nadim Audi of The New York Times; by Ned Parker, Kim Murphy and Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times; and by Liz Sly, Ali Qeis, Dlovan Barwari and a special correspondent in Kirkuk, Iraq, for The Washington Post.