Police fires rubber bullets on stone-throwing protesters, two dead

The popular uprisings across the Arab world reached on Sunday Oman where police fired rubber bullets on stone-throwing protesters demanding political reform in an industrial town on Sunday, killing two people.

According to a security official, two protesters were shot dead with rubber bullets and around five others wounded as Omani security forces opened fire on demonstrators who tried to storm a police station. "Two were killed after being shot with rubber bullets as protesters attempted to storm a police station," in Sohar, over 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of Muscat, the official said, requesting anonymity.

Witnesses said at least 1,000 protesters had gathered for a second straight day in a main square in Sohar before police tried to disperse them first with tear gas and batons before firing on them with rubber bullets. "Two people have died after police fired rubber bullets in the crowd," one witness, who declined to be named, told Reuters from Sohar. Another witness said the police had used live ammunition, but that could not be confirmed.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said, trying to ease tensions in the normally sleepy Gulf state as Arab unrest spread in the region, reshuffled his cabinet on Saturday, a week after an earlier protest in the capital Muscat.

Protests were also taking place in the southern town of Salalah where demonstrators have been camped out since Friday near the office of a provincial governor.

After the clashes in Sohar, police pulled back from the protest and the crowd, some of whom were carrying petrol and matches, was making its way to a police station, said one witness, who gave his name only as Mohammed. Helicopters circled overhead.

Witnesses said at least eight people had been hurt in the melee in addition to the two fatalities. Roadblocks had been set up on a main road between Sohar and Muscat, they said.