A massive show of force snuffed out a Facebook-based effort to stage unprecedented pro-democracy protests in the capital of Saudi Arabia on Friday but political unrest and sectarian tensions roiled neighboring Yemen and Bahrain.
Yemen's largest demonstrations in a month were met by police gunfire that left at least six protesters injured and seemed certain to fuel more anger against the deeply unpopular U.S.-allied president.
In Bahrain, a conflict deepened between the island kingdom's Shiite majority and its Sunni Muslim royal family, whose security forces and pro-government mobs attacked demonstrators with tear gas, rocks and swords. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited the tiny country, the home of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, to reassure its rulers of unwavering U.S. support, officials said.
With uprisings threatening allies on its eastern and southern flanks, the Sunni Saudi monarchy appeared to be taking no chances in its effort to keep the popular push for democracy in the Arab world from spreading to the world's largest crude oil exporter.
In the heavily Shiite eastern Saudi city of Qatif, a short drive from Bahrain, armored personnel carriers and dozens of officers in riot gear surrounded several hundred demonstrators shouting calls for reforms and equality between the sects. Police opened fire in the city to disperse a protest late Thursday in an incident that left three protesters and one officer wounded, but there was no repeat of that violence.
Yemen's president of 32 years appeared to be one of the Arab leaders most threatened by the regional unrest inspired by pro-democracy revolts in Egypt and Tunisia.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Yemen's four largest provinces, ripping down and burning President Ali Abdullah Saleh's portraits in Sheikh Othman, the most populated district in the southern port city of Aden, witnesses said.
Security forces hurled tear gas into crowds close to a stadium and then opened fire, using machine guns mounted on vehicles, said eyewitness Sind Abdullah, 25.
In the conservative capital, Sanaa, thousands of women participated in demonstrations -- a startling move in a deeply tribal society where women are expected to stay out of sight.
Demonstrators demanded jobs and greater political freedom and decried Saleh's proposal Thursday that the government create a new constitution guaranteeing the independence of parliament and the judiciary, calling it too little and too late.
The autocratic leader is also an ally in the Obama adminstration's push to eliminate the local branch of al-Qaida, which has attempted to attack the United States. He has also worked closely with the Saudis to quash his own Shiite uprising in the north.
