MANAMA (AFP) – Bahraini security forces opened fire Friday on anti-regime protesters in the capital, with reports of up to 55 wounded, after the army vowed "strict measures" to restore order after a deadly police raid.

Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa promised to open a national dialogue once calm returns, and soon after King Hamad formally announced that he had assigned him to start those discussions.

US President Barack Obama condemned the violence in Bahrain, which is of vital strategic importance to Washington because the US Navy's Fifth Fleet is based there and some 40 percent of the world's oil passes through the Gulf.

The prospect of a prolonged crisis raises fears of a potential flashpoint between Iran and its Gulf Arab rivals, if the Islamic republic attempts to capitalise on the Shiite-led protest.

Iran "condemned the violent confrontation" and asked the Bahraini government to show self-restraint, the state broadcaster's website quoted foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast as saying.

Hardliners in predominantly Shiite Iran have often expressed kinship and support for Bahrain's Shiites, whose leadership stresses its allegiance to Bahrain.

Marchers had been trying to reach Pearl Square, the epicentre of pro-democracy protests that have shaken the Gulf island state, when the forces opened fire.

Witnesses said the gunfire was targeting them near Salmaniya hospital, about two kilometres (one mile) to the south.

"In total, 55 wounded, including four badly hurt, have been admitted to Salmaniya hospital," said Shiite opposition MP Abdel Jalil Khalil Ibrahim.

Among them was a man who was clinically dead after being hit in the head by a bullet, Ibrahim said.

In contrast, state television said seven people had been lightly wounded and that most had been treated and released.

Another opposition MP, Ali al-Aswad, accused the army of doing the shooting. Initially, witnesses had said it was the police.

"The army fired live bullets at more than one thousand people who wanted to reach the Pearl" Square, Aswad said.

This was the first demonstration since police stormed the square before dawn on Thursday, killing four people and wounding around 200.

Following that raid, which was widely condemned abroad, troops were deployed in Manama, and the defence ministry warned that the army would "take all strict and preventive measures to restore security and public order."

In a television interview, Prince Salman said "our dialogue must take place in a climate of total calm," adding that "no issue can be excluded from that dialogue."

"What is happening today in Bahrain is not acceptable... We have reached a dangerous stage that necessitates that each of us acknowledges the responsibilities... Bahrain today is divided."

In a statement read on state television, King Hamad charged Prince Salman with starting a "dialogue with all sides and groups in the kingdom with no exceptions."

"We have given him all the powers needed to reach the aspirations of all esteemed citizens," he added, urging all sides to "cooperate faithfully" with him.

The statement made no mention of the latest violence.

Earlier, angry Shiites in the nearby villages of Sitra and Karzakan buried the four people killed on Thursday.

Thousands of mourners chanted slogans calling for the ouster of the Sunni al-Khalifa dynasty's regime, and sang songs urging unity between the Shiite majority and Sunni compatriots.

They shouted "people want to overthrow the regime" -- the slogan used by protesters across the Arab world inspired by uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt that brought down the strongmen of those two Western-backed countries.

A large banner carried in front of the funeral procession of victim Ali Mumen condemned concerns by Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone that next month's Bahrain Grand Prix would be affected by the political upheavals.

"Mr Ecclestone, are our lives a price for your Formula One?" it asked, in English.

"No Sunnis. No Shiites, only national unity," chanted mourners.

Shiites complain of discrimination and face suspicion over their loyalty to Bahrain, amid Gulf fears of Iranian attempts to use Shiites to destabilise the staunch US-allied Sunni monarchies.

Mumen's family showed his body to journalists, and an AFP reporter said it had numerous buckshot wounds.

"I call upon my Sunni brothers to express solidarity. Otherwise, they will be the next (victims)," said his father, Ali.

Meanwhile, hundreds of pro-regime demonstrators marched in Manama after Friday prayers, denouncing the opposition and pledging allegiance to the king.

Britain revoked 44 licences for the export of security equipment to Bahrain because of the risk it might be used to suppress anti-regime protests, the foreign office said.

France also suspended exports of security equipment.

Bahrain's opposition wants the ruling family to give up its grip over government posts.

On Thursday, the Shiite-led opposition raised the stakes. Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the Islamic National Accord Association, which has the largest single parliamentary bloc, demanded a "real constitutional monarchy."

Salman demanded the resignation of the widely despised Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman, King Hamad's uncle who has been in office since 1971.

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MANAMA (Reuters) – Bahraini security forces fired on protesters on Friday, wounding dozens, and thousands demonstrated in Libya after a deadly government crackdown as pro-democracy unrest in the Middle East and North Africa turned increasingly violent.

While millions of Egyptians staged a "Victory March" feting their overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak last week after 30 years, protesters elsewhere, inspired by their success, pursued struggles against their own authoritarian rulers.

At least 60 people were wounded on Friday near Pearl Square in the Bahraini capital, Manama, a day after police swept away a protest camp from the traffic circle in the city, killing four people and wounding more than 230.

At least five people were killed in Yemen on Friday when security forces and pro-government loyalists clashed with crowds demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 32-year rule.

In Libya, thousands of people protested in the North African country's second-biggest city of Benghazi over a security crackdown that has killed dozens of people but failed to halt the worst unrest of Muammar Gaddafi's four decades in power.

The spreading contagion of unrest -- particularly worries about its possible effects on the world No. 1 oil producer, Saudi Arabia, helped drive Brent crude prices higher this week before other factors caused them to slip on Friday.

It was also a factor in gold prices posting their best weekly performance since December.

'LIVE BULLETS'

In Bahrain, Ali Ibrahim, deputy chief of medical staff at Salmaniya hospital, said 66 people had been admitted suffering wounds from the clash in Pearl Square. Four were in critical condition.

"We think it was the army," former lawmaker Sayed Hadi said of the shootings. He is a member of Wefaq, the main Shi'ite bloc, which resigned from parliament on Thursday.

Protester Fakhri Abdullah Rashed said he had seen soldiers shooting at demonstrators in Pearl Square. "I saw people shot in several parts of their body. It was live bullets," he added.

About 1,000 emotional people gathered outside a hospital, some spilling into the corridors as casualties were brought in, including one with a bloody sheet over his head.

King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa announced he had asked the crown prince to start a national dialogue "with all parties" to resolve the crisis rocking the island kingdom.

Bahrain's most revered Shi'ite cleric, Sheikh Issa Qassem, described the police attack as a "massacre" and said the government had shut the door to dialogue. But he stopped short of calling openly for street protests.

It was the worst bloodshed in the Saudi-allied Gulf island kingdom in decades and underlined the jitters of its Sunni royal family, long aware of simmering discontent among the majority Shi'ites.

The army in Bahrain, a country of 1.3 million people of whom 600,000 are native Bahrainis, had issued a warning to people to stay away from the center of the capital.

The unrest has presented the United States with a now familiar dilemma. It is torn between its desire for stability in a long-standing Arab ally and a need to uphold its own principles about the right of people to demonstrate for democratic change.

"I am deeply concerned by reports of violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries, and wherever else it may occur," President Barack Obama said in a statement.

Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, which projects U.S. military muscle across the Middle East and Central Asia, and the tension could fuel discontent among the Shi'ite minority in neighboring Saudi Arabia.

YEMEN GRENADE ATTACK

In Yemen, doctors said four people died from gunfire in the southern port of Aden, where resentment against rule from the capital, Sanaa, runs high. One person was killed and 28 wounded when a grenade was thrown from a car into a crowd in Taiz, south of Sanaa.

Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters thronged Taiz, where pro-government crowds also turned out, and there were smaller rival demonstrations in Sanaa.

In Aden, thousands of protesters angered by what they said was excessive force by security forces, stayed in the streets for hours.

Some broke away and set fire to a building formerly used by police, while others threw rocks at a local government office in the heart of the southern port town, witnesses said.

Yemeni leader Saleh, a U.S. ally against a Yemen-based al Qaeda wing that has launched attacks at home and abroad, is struggling to defuse protests demanding political change and jobs.

In Libya, opposition activists said protesters were fighting troops for control of Al Bayda, a town 200 km (125 miles) northeast of Benghazi.

Al Bayda was the scene of some of the worst violence over the past two days, where townspeople said they were burying 14 people killed in earlier clashes.

Human rights group Amnesty International said it believed Libyan security forces had shot and killed at least 46 people in the past three days.

In Egypt, millions took to the streets to celebrate Mubarak's downfall and to remind the country's military rulers to keep their promise of a swift transition to democracy.

The emotional day was also a memorial to the 365 people who died in the uprising and many said they would hold the military to promises of elections within six months.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Sanaa; Writing by Janet Lawrence and Eric Beech; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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