“Whoever took the decision to attack the protest was aiming to kill, it’s real terrorism”

At least seven pro-reform protesters have been martyred and dozens more injured early Thursday after hundreds of Bahraini riot police, armed with tear gas, rubber bullets and clubs, stormed their makeshift encampment in a violent crackdown in the main traffic circle in the capital, Manama, while they slept. Police refused to let in ambulances to take casualties.

Up to 95 protesters were wounded when police launched the operation in the iconic Pearl Square without warning at around 3.00 am (midnight GMT), sending protesters fleeing in panic.  Relatives of the victims gathered outside the hospital, angry and weeping.
  
During the operation, explosions and ambulance sirens could be heard a few hundred meters (yards) from the central square, which had been sealed off. Demonstrators fled pursued by security forces, as a helicopter flew overhead, AFP reported.
Bahrain's largest opposition bloc intends to quit parliament, one of its MPs said Thursday. Al-Wefaq bloc, which occupies 18 of the 40 parliamentary seats in Bahrain, is "heading towards pulling out" from the parliament, MP Ali al-Aswad told AFP.The head of the party "Ali Salman will announce something in this regard," he added.

The head of Bahrain's main opposition bloc has described the riot police attack as “real terrorism.” “Whoever took the decision to attack the protest was aiming to kill,” Reuters quoted Abdul Jalil Khalil, a parliamentarian with the Wefaq bloc as saying on Thursday.

Thousands of pro-democracy protesters have been occupying the Pearl Square since Wednesday, after days of clashes that resulted in two deaths and an apology from Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

The crowd chanted: "Down with Al-Khalifa", in reference to the country's ruling family and vowed that the blood of the victims will not be in vein.

In a statement, the Bahraini interior ministry said that "security forces evacuated the area of Pearl Roundabout from protesters, after trying all opportunities for dialogue with them, in which some positively responded and left quietly."

"We will ask legislators to look into this issue and suggest needed laws to resolve it," he said, adding that peaceful protests were legal," Sheikh Hamad said.

On Wednesday, Bahraini authorities said that they would seek to restore calm in the streets on Thursday, after days of protests inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and intensified by the deaths of two protesters in 24 hours.

The magnitude of the pro-democracy protests in Bahrain is unprecedented in the history of the kingdom and the authorities' efforts to quell them have so far been ineffective.