Blast Kills Bahrain Policeman during Uprising Protests

A Bahraini policeman has died of wounds he sustained in a bomb blast during protests marking the anniversary of a 2011 Arab Spring-inspired uprising, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

The "terrorist explosion" struck in the Shiite village of Dair outside the capital Manama late on Friday and wounded "two on-duty policemen assigned to secure the road," including the one who later died, the ministry said on Twitter.

It was the second reported blast during the protests marking the third anniversary of the uprising among the Gulf state's Shiite majority for a constitutional monarchy in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

Earlier, the ministry reported another explosion in the similarly-named village of Daih, which caused minor damage to a bus transporting police personnel, pictures posted on Twitter showed.

The blasts struck as protesters took to the streets in several areas of the small but strategic archipelago, which lies just across the Gulf from Iran and is home base to the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

Shiite villages have been at the forefront of the campaign among the majority community for the ruling Khalifa family to surrender its grip on all key cabinet posts in favor of an elected government.

Witnesses said that several protesters were wounded as police fired tear gas and bird shot to disperse them on Friday.

Demonstrators responded by hurling petrol bombs at security forces, the witnesses added.

Protesters had gathered in several Shiite villages in an attempt to march on the capital's Pearl Square where demonstrators camped out for a month in early 2011 before being violently dispersed by troops.

"Some villages saw rioting, vandalism and the targeting of policemen. This required police to respond to these criminal acts through legal means," the interior ministry said on Saturday.

A total of 26 people "suspected of rioting and vandalism" were arrested on Friday, the ministry said. The arrests followed 29 on Thursday.

In August last year, King Hamad ordered stiffer penalties for terrorism offenses, including a minimum 10-year jail term for attempted bombing convictions.

Bombs that result in casualties are punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty.

Amnesty International on Thursday condemned Bahrain's "relentless repression" of dissent and said it feared a violent crackdown on demonstrations marking the uprising anniversary.

The International Federation for Human Rights urged Bahrain "to take immediate measures to restore the rule of law, to put an end to ongoing human rights violations."

At least 89 people have been killed since the uprising broke out three years ago, the rights group says.

In an anniversary speech on Friday, King Hamad affirmed the kingdom's "commitment to complete reform in accordance with our circumstances, national interests, identity and values".

Two rounds of national reconciliation talks between the opposition and the government have failed to make any headway.

U.S. State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf urged all parties to concentrate on "resuming a dialogue in Bahrain."

"So we would encourage both sides to refrain from violence and show restraint and try to move the dialogue forward," she said.