Funerals held in protest-hit Bahrain

Several thousand people have turned out in Bahrain to bury three of those killed in a crackdown on protests in the capital.

At least four people died as riot police drove activists from a makeshift camp in Pearl Square in Manama. More than 230 other demonstrators were wounded.

There were cries of "The people want the fall of the regime", as the funeral processions moved through the village of Sitra, south of the capital.

Inside the Sitra mosque, men washed the body of 22-year-old student Mahmoud Abu Taki, who was peppered with buckshot.

"He told me before he went there, 'don't worry, father, I want freedom'," said his father, Mekki Abu Taki, 53.

Police stayed away, although a helicopter circled overhead. On Tuesday, one protester was killed at the funeral of another.

Britain's most revered Shia cleric, Sheikh Issa Qassem, described the Pearl Square confrontation as a "massacre" and said the government had shut the door to dialogue.

He spoke to the gathering for Friday prayers at a mosque in a village in the northwest of the island.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Bahrain on Thursday to use restraint and to keep its promise "to hold accountable those who have used excessive force".

Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said the police action was necessary because his country had been on the "brink of a sectarian abyss".

A decade ago Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa enacted a constitution allowing elections for a parliament with some powers, but royals still dominate a cabinet led by the king's uncle who has been prime minister for 40 years.

Shias, in particular, still feel excluded from decision-making.