One person wounded in fourth day of protests in Oman
Omani troops fired into the air near a port on Tuesday to clear a fourth day of protests by people demanding jobs and political reforms, wounding one person in the town of Sohar.
"We were about 200 to 300 people on 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 (had) come to calm the army down."
The crowd dispersed before regrouping again near the port IN north Oman, the witnesses said, and the troops pulled back.
The unrest in Sohar, Oman's main industrial center, was a rare outbreak of discontent in the normally tranquil Gulf state, ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said for four decades, following a wave of pro-democracy protests across the Arab world.
Trying to calm tensions, the sultan on Sunday promised 50,000 jobs, unemployment benefits of $390 a month and to study widening the power of a quasi-parliamentary advisory council.
In Sohar after the confrontation, traffic flowed freely into the port, which exports 160,000 barrels per day of refined oil products, despite the presence of around 150 protesters. Protesters had blocked the entrance to the port on Monday.
Omani troops had been deployed in the city beforehand but until Tuesday had refrained from intervening to stop protests.
At the nearby Globe Roundabout, center of the Sohar protests that have drawn up to 2,000 people, five armored vehicles watched the square but no demonstrators could be seen.
Later in the capital Muscat, about 200 people gathered in a silent protest in front of the building of the Shura Council, the elected advisory body, asking for jobs and reforms.
The carried placards reading "We want jobs," "We want higher salaries" and "We want freedom of the press," asking the council to inform the sultan about their demands.
About 2,000 people also gathered at a Muscat mosque to voice support for Sultan Qaboos and the government, blaming violence during this week's demonstrations on protesters, residents said.
