Syria, Egypt, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Beyond a "Return" to Protest

Egyptian military drag, and disrobe a female protester

See also Bahrain Video Special: The Police Attack Protesters at Budaiya
Friday's Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Beat Goes On --- Anticipating Friday's Protests

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2100 GMT: One Egyptian soldier beats a protester while another soldier wields a handgun:

2005 GMT: An EA source is reporting another death from the activities of the security forces in Bahrain. Abdulali Ahmed Ali, a 73-year-old man, suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation in Mugsha village on Friday and died this evening. People are now gathered around his house.

A woman emerges from the tear gas in Karranah on Thursday:

1950 GMT: Tonight's protest in Qosour in Homs in Syria:

1945 GMT: Want an idea of how much tear gas is being used in Bahrain? Here are the used canisters from yesterday in Abu Saiba:

1810 GMT: A large protest in Horan Province in Syria tonight:

1805 GMT: Witnesses report that Joseph Mayton, the founder of the website BikyaMasr, has been detained by the Egyptian military today.

1715 GMT: Activists have offered contrasting numbers of the dead in Syria today.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces shot dead at least 20 people, most of them in the central province of Homs, while the Local Coordination Committees, said 34 people were killed, including eight army defectors.

Meanwhile, Qatari Prime Minister Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani said the Arab League has given Syria until Wednesday to allow observers into the country. Otherwise, the matter will be handed to the United Nations Security Council for action to end the violence.

1655 GMT: Medical students lead a march into Tahrir Square for Alaa Abdel Hady, killed on Friday:

1650 GMT: Security forces in Bahrain launch their assault on protesters in Budaiya this afternoon:

1645 GMT: Jonathan Rashad in Cairo: "At the battlefront. Protesters defending themselves with self-made barricades, rocks and molotov cocktails. Fireworks in the air."

Max Strasser, the foreign editor of Al Masry Al Youm, comments, "What the fuck kind of army shoots fireworks at people and throws Molotovs???"

1620 GMT: A blanket of tear gas fired by Bahraini security forces on Saturday:

1610 GMT: Journalist Borzou Daragahi is sending messages about continuing clashes in Cairo: "Ferocious fighting between protestors and MPs [military police] at sepaearion wall. Baltagiya on rooftop throws firebomb onto protestors. Groups of protestors creep up toward the wall holding metal grate. Several people with laser pointers. One tells me he uses it to temporarily blind baltagiya. Situation seems static unless protestors or mps breach separation barrier."

And a few minutes later: "Military police approaching wall, they may have had enough, shot fired."

1540 GMT: Another video of Egyptian security forces firing upon and wounding protesters in Cairo today:

1534 GMT: A protest in Talbiseh, near Homs, in Syria today:

1524 GMT: The moment that Bahraini security forces opened fire to disperse protesters in Budaiya this afternoon:

The occupation just before the attack:

Claimed photo of a protester being hit in the head by a rubber bullet:

1439 GMT: From an activist in Bahrain: "We were suppressed brutally on Budaiya St by police mercenaries. Women & men fell down on the ground. It was a massacre."

1429 GMT: Bahraini police have used tear gas in an attempt to disperse protesters in Budaiya --- reports indicated the demonstrators were gathering to carry out an occupation of the main highway. Activist Alaa Shehabi sent the message, "Ok might hav to start running now. Can see police Now coming from side streets!!!!":

Protesters gathering just before the police attack:

Video of an earlier use of tear gas by security forces on people praying at the demolished mosque of AlKuwaikibat:

1339 GMT: Protesters have gathered in front of police in Budaiya, near where they tried to occupy a major highway on Thursday --- one offers a flower amidst chants of "Peaceful":

1335 GMT: The Egyptian military march through Tahrir Square in Cairo, having cleared it this morning, chanting, "Allahu Akbar (God is Great)!"

1330 GMT: Claimed footage of the "Strike of Dignity" continuing to shut down shops in town in Aleppo Province in Syria today:

1320 GMT: Photographer Jonathan Rashad reports, "At Zinhom Morgue. A 15 years old boy is dead after getting a live bullet in the chest by the army. His name is Sayed Omar Ahmed Ali."

Abu El Ela Madi, a member of the advisory council of Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, has resigned. He is the ninth member to quit over the current violence.

Last night, eight members of the council issued a joint letter of resignation --- see our translation in Friday's LiveBlog --- "as a protest to the way or method in which the officials responsible for handling crises in the state have dealt with the events related to the [sit-in at the] Cabinet. This method of handling the crisis...foretells a great danger to our beloved Egypt."

Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri has maintained that Egyptian forces are facing a "counter-revolution", saying these were "not the youth" who toppled the Mubarak regime.

The military drag away a protester at Abdul Moneim-Riad Square:

1305 GMT:Developments from Bahrain at the funeral of Ali Alqassab, a protester killed by a car on Thursday --- thousands in the procession are chanting, "I'm the nex martyr", "Our revolution is peaceful" and "Leave, leave murderer!":

The police watching them:

1250 GMT: Egyptian military have broken into the headquarters of the Al-Adl (Justice) Party near the Cabinet building, arresting a number of party members.

The members were at the sit-in in front of the Cabinet. When they regrouped after the clashes there, they were followed by troops who arrested them.

Claimed footage of the military police beating protesters this morning:

1120 GMT: The United Nations Security Council has unfrozen more than $40 billion in Libyan assets, as the new government looks to rebuild the country.

The Obama Administration also announced that it had rolled back most sanctions on Libyan banks, unblocking more than $30 billion, while Britain is pressing the European Union to release £6.5 billion ($10 billion) of assets that have been frozen in London.

The announcement comes as US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta arrived in Tripoli for meetings with Libya's interim Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib and Minister of Defense Osama Al-Juwali.

1105 GMT: Sheikh Ali Salman, the leader of Bahrain's largest opposition group, has said he will meet British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt in London on Monday.

The meeting with Salman, the head of Al Wefaq, would be the latest step in Britain's diplomatic initiative to support Bahraini "reform". King Hamad saw Prime Minister David Cameron in London on Monday, and Burt --- as well as US Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner --- followed with a trip to Bahrain.

Salman had welcomed Cameron's comments after the meeting with the King: "Pushing the government to do real reform is welcome from us."

1055 GMT: The scene in Tahrir Square in Cairo this morning as the military police moved in and burned the tents of protesters:

Video of the Square as it was overrun:

A witness reports, "Egypt army troupes attacked Tahrir , removed all television cameras and broke into homes where people are filming. Ambulances chased away." Al Jazeera English's Rawya Rageh wrote, "Sheer insanity at Qasr Aini & Tahrir, military police tearing everything apart, chairs, cars, sidewalks."

1045 GMT: A Bahraini activist on Twitter translates a demonstrator's account of his experience of the violence by security forces yesterday (see video at 0735 GMT):

I was one of those besieged in the building in Shakura. I got beaten violently & they robbed my 2 phones, wallet & camera....

We were around 40 or more in the building. One of us saw police beating some women so he screamed; then police saw us....Mercenaries came, there was no way 2 escape. We moved to rooftop, an officer came along with naturalized mercenaries....

They targeted shot guns @ us,besieged us, forced us 2 lie down facing the ground &...beat everyone with batons. Those who were [hit] were screaming of pain; the more they screamed the more they were beaten until [they] started bleeding. Some were kicked directly in the face & others were beaten on the arms.

I was asked to hand in my stuff so I gave it all. I was moved 2 other side of the rooftop & meanwhile got beaten twice on my head with baton. I felt I had brain concussion. Someone was next to me, his dress was covered with blood from his face.

Then we were all piled and beaten. At that stage; I personally didn't get beaten as the guys were on top of me got the beating.

1035 GMT: Back from a weekend break to find the announcement by the Tunisian President --- a year after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi led to the uprising that toppled the Ben Ali regime --- that he would sell off most of the Presidential palaces built by Ben Ali and use the cash to fund new jobs.

Tunisia's State news agency said, "Moncef Marzouki announced on Friday that the presidential palaces will be sold, with the exception of Carthage Palace, and the money will be allocated to support the employment sector."

Ben Ali and his wife, Leila Trabelsi, now in exile in Saudi Arabia, built several luxury palaces with swimming pools and golf courses, reportedly at a cost of billions of dollars.

0735 GMT: A video from Friday in Bahrain apparently showing police atop a building, beating a man who is hidden behind the facade:

Marc Owen Jones analyses the footage for evidence of police brutality.

0730 GMT: More clashes are reported this morning in Cairo, with Egyptian security forces pushing back protesters in front of the Cabinet building and establishing a cordon outside the National Museum:

0725 GMT: Yemen again saw massive Friday protests against President Saleh, demanding that he face trial for his alleged crimes --- in the capital Sana'a:

Hodeidah:

Taiz, where two youth were killed after the march:

0615 GMT: At one point during a frantic Friday, the EA staff saw a post from Reuters, "Protest Return to Bahrain", and collectively paused in wonder. Not at the occurrence, but at the headline.

Protests "returning" to Bahrain?

They never went away, of course, even if some journalists had stopped paying attention. The events of National Day had merely confirmed the long-running challenge to the regime, irrespective of the mantra of "reform" being put out by Washington and London as well as Manama, and how that challenge was only being fuelled by responses such as the arrests of activists and the tear-gassing of villages.

Nor had protests "returned" to Egypt on Friday. The clashes in front of the Cabinet building in Cairo, captured on photographs and video as well as marked by the injuries and deaths of demonstrators, were a spike in the ongoing struggle between military rulers and those who will not accept its legitimacy and its imposition of authority.

And no one, if he/she was paying attention, was talking of a "return" of anything --- protest, violence, death --- in Syria on Friday. There was, however, the question of scale. As parts of the country now approaches, perhaps inexorably, an insurgency, the visual testimony to the size of opposition rallies out-stripped our capacity to report it.

The question is not of a "return" of protest. It is how far beyond a "return" these conflicts will go.

The anti-regime demonstration in Idlib in northwestern Syria on Friday: