Manama: Bahraini riot police and around 300 school students protesting the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin clashed outside the US Embassy here yesterday after some of the protesters hurled stones at the mission compound.

Riot police responded by firing tear gas to disperse the protesters - aged 14 to 18 - as they encircled the compound, located in Al Zinj area, in an attempt to reach its heavily guarded fences.

A Bahraini student runs to kick a tear gas cannister thrown by Bahrain riot police in front of American Embassy in Manama yesterday. Picture: AP

No one was injured in the clashes and security forces said that they used minimum force to ensure that nobody was injured.

Sentiments rise high in Bahrain, as well as in the rest of the Arab world, after Israeli forces killed Sheikh Yassin. A number of US embassies in the region yesterday advised American citizens to be cautious.

The Bahraini protesters, who began their march peacefully around 8am, managed to stage a sit-in opposite the embassy around 11 causing a traffic jam. The students were shouting slogans "Down with USA and the Zionist entity" and "Close the US Embassy" and expressed their solidarity with the Palestinian people.

A representative of the students presented a letter that "condemned the US-Israeli co-operation" and demanded that Israeli Pri-me Minister Areil Sharon be brought to justice.
The protest turned violent shortly after the letter was delivered when a group of the protesters began throwing stones at the compound.

Security around the United State's embassy in Bahrain was intensified with barbed wire and additional police units guarding it a day earlier after protests over the assassination of Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin continued to take place in various parts of the country for the last three days.

Close to 1000 protesters - including around 100 women - on Tuesday night marched in Seef district burning an effigy representing Sharon.

A major demonstration that is expected to attract thousands of people will head to the US Embassy tomorrow afternoon, following the Friday prayers, sources said yesterday.

The US embassy in Bahrain has witnessed similar clashes two years ago when hundreds of demonstrators, protesting the Israeli siege of Palestinian town of Ramallah, hurled stones and petrol bombs at the embassy walls. Police intervened. One man died two days later from injuries sustained in the clashes.

The writer is a Bahraini journalist based in Manama