Popoular Revolts in the Arab world.

Thousands in streets as Bahrain and Libya bury dead from week of furyHadeel Al-shalchi Manama, BahrainFebruary 19, 2011

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Amateur footage of Libyan riots, Amateur footage of supposed protests in Libya on YouTube uploaded day after deadly clashes.

THOUSANDS of mourners called for the downfall of Bahrain's monarchy as burials began yesterday with tanks on the streets.

The cries against Bahrain's king and his inner circle reflect an escalation of the demands from an uprising that began by asking for a loosening of the Sunni monarchy's hold on top government posts and addressing discrimination against the Shiite majority in the tiny island nation.

The mood, however, appears to have turned against the entire ruling system after the brutal attack on Thursday on a protest encampment in the capital Manama, which left at least five dead and more than 230 injured, while putting the nation under a state of emergency.

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Unrest sweeps across Muslim nations

The body of a protester, who was killed by riot-police, is carried by family members in Sitra, Bahrain. Photo: 

''The regime has broken something inside of me … All of these people gathered today have had something broken in them,'' said Ahmed Makki, whose 27-year-old brother Mahmoud was killed in the predawn sweep through the protest camp at Manama's Pearl Roundabout.

The White House has expressed ''strong displeasure'' about the rising tensions in Bahrain, which is home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet and the centrepiece of the Pentagon's efforts to confront Iran's regional military ambitions.

In the government's first public comment on the crackdown, Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said on Thursday it was necessary because the demonstrators were ''polarising the country'' and pushing it to the ''brink of the sectarian abyss''.

Bahrain's roughly 12,000-member military is made up predominantly of Bahraini nationals. But the security forces, including riot police, are filled with Pakistanis and other foreign-born troops and officers ''who are happy to do whatever they have to do to keep law and order'', said Bruce Riedel, a former Middle East CIA analyst now with the Brookings Institution in Washington.

In Libya, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime turned its helicopter gunships and snipers on protesters, killing up to 19 people.

The eccentric dictator was the focus of a ''Day of Rage'' in at least five cities. Human Rights Solidarity, a campaign group, said snipers in al-Baida, the country's third largest city, had killed 13 protesters and wounded dozens of others after police stations were set on fire and posters of Colonel Gaddafi burnt.

Other opposition websites said six people had died in Benghazi after clashes broke out at the funerals of two people killed the day before. Helicopter gunships were reported to have been deployed and hospitals reportedly had received scores of injured.

A heavy turnout of regime supporters bearing sticks and placards praising the ''brother leader'', who has ruled Libya since 1969, failed to deter protests in Tripoli.

The regime also bombarded the mobile phone network with messages from ''the youth of Libya'' warning against crossing ''four red lines: Muammar Gaddafi, territorial integrity, Islam and internal security''.

Libya produces about 2 per cent of the world's crude oil exports and firms like Shell and BP have invested billions of dollars there.

The seventh straight day of unrest in Yemen saw thousands of protesters clash with regime loyalists wielding rocks, metal pipes and daggers in major cities.

''Ali Abdullah Saleh must go,'' said Abdullah Hassan, 32, an unemployed man whose leg was bleeding profusely. ''The government is targeting its own people.''

A few steps away, two youths were carrying a banner reading: ''For every dictator there is an end.''

Mr Saleh, who has ruled for more than three decades and is a key US ally in the war against terrorism, has pledged to step down in 2013, when his term ends. But many Yemenis said that after years of empty promises to enact reforms, they don't believe him.

The authorities' pleas for calm also fell on deaf ears in Egypt, where hundreds of workers went on strike along the Suez Canal, joining people across Egypt pressing demands for better wages and conditions. The military has repeatedly urged workers to end their strikes, but to no avail.

The head of al-Azhar in Cairo, once one of the world's foremost institutions of Islamic scholarship, has called for its leadership to be elected, not appointed by the government, a change that could reverse decades of the institution's abject subordination to the state.

AP, AGENCIES

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