Omani troops fired in the air, wounding one person, when they moved in to disperse a crowd demanding jobs and political reforms near the northern port of Sohar yesterday, the fourth day of protests, witnesses said.
“We were about 200 to 300 people in the road. The army started shooting in the air,” one protester in Sohar said, declining to be named. “Many people ran. The man who was shot came to calm the army down.”
The crowd dispersed, but then regrouped at a roundabout near the port, the witnesses said, and the troops pulled back.
On Monday, demonstrators blocked the entrance to the port, which exports 160,000 barrels per day of refined oil products, and protests spread to the capital, Muscat.
The unrest in Sohar, Oman’s main industrial center, was a rare outbreak of discontent in the normally sleepy sultanate ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said for four decades and follows a wave of pro-democracy protests across the Arab world.
TROOPS DEPLOYED
An Omani government official said the military has deployed troops north of the capital of Muscat and near the border with the United Arab Emirates.
The official says the army also deployed light equipment yesterday in anticipation of more anti-government protests.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information to the media.
A rally in support of the sultan was planned for yesterday in Muscat.
The sultan, trying to calm tensions, on Sunday promised 50,000 jobs, unemployment benefits of US$390 a month and to study widening the power of a quasi-parliamentary advisory council.
In Sohar, traffic flowed freely into the port yesterday.
At the nearby Globe Roundabout, center of the Sohar protests that have drawn up to 2,000 people over the past three days, five armored vehicles watched the square, but no protesters could be seen.
As many as six people were killed in Sohar on Sunday, when police opened fire on stone-throwing demonstrators after failing to disperse them with batons and tear gas.
A doctor and several nurses at a state hospital said six people died, but the health minister put the toll at one.
US REACTS
US Department of State spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Monday that Washington had been “in touch with the government and encouraged restraint and to resolve differences through dialogue,” as demonstrations spread through the sultanate.
Qaboos, who exercises absolute power in a country where political parties are banned, shuffled his Cabinet on Saturday, a week after a small protest in the capital gave the first hint that Arab discontent could reach Oman.
Oman is a non-OPEC oil exporter that pumps about 850,000 barrels per day and has strong ties to the US.
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