Saudi troops must leave Bahrain: opposition leader

The leader of Bahrain's largest opposition group has urged Saudi Arabia to withdraw its forces and called for a UN inquiry into a crackdown on mainly Shia protesters that has raised tensions in the oil-exporting region. Bahrain arrested seven opposition leaders on Thursday, a day after its forces moved in to end weeks of pro-democracy protests that have sucked in troops from its fellow Sunni-ruled neighbour and prompted the king to declare martial law.
"The military should withdraw from Bahrain, the military of Saudi Arabia, and this is a call to the Saudi king," Sheikh Ali Salman, head of Wefaq, told Al Jazeera television. "We call for an investigation by the United Nations into what has happened from February 14 up to now. If protesters were in the wrong, then they should be held to account." Three protesters died in the crackdown but so did three policemen mown down by demonstrators in fast-moving cars.
The crackdown has drawn sympathy protests from Shias across the Gulf Arab region, including the world's top oil-exporter Saudi Arabia, and Iran has complained to the United Nations. Iran, which supports Shia groups in Iraq and Lebanon, asked countries in the region to join it in urging Saudi Arabia to withdraw troops from the Gulf Arab island state.
"How could one accept a government to invite foreign military forces to suppress its own citizens?" Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, also addressed to the Arab League. Over 60 percent of Bahrainis are Shias. Most say they want the same treatment as Sunnis and a constitutional monarchy, but calls by hard-liners for the overthrow of the monarchy have alarmed Sunnis, who fear the unrest serves Iran.
Bahraini state TV called the detainees leaders of "civil strife" and said they had been communicating with foreign countries and inciting murder and destruction of properties. Among those detained overnight were Haq leader Hassan Mushaima and Wafa leader Abdel Wahhab Hussein, who had led calls for the overthrow of the royal family, Wefaq officials said.