A fresh outbreak of trouble is reported in Qatif (eastern Saudi Arabia), which has a large Shia population. The interior ministry says 14 people were injured, 11 of them security personnel, in rioting on Monday and claims the disturbances were instigated by "a foreign power" – an apparent reference to Iran.

According to an official quoted in the Jeddah-based Arab News, "A group of troublemakers assembled ... some on motorbikes and carrying petrol bombs, as they began their actions to disrupt security at the behest of a foreign country which tried to undermine the nation's security in a blatant act of interference."

The Financial Times quotes the Saudi Press Agency as saying that rioters in the town of al-Awwamiya fired machine guns and hurled Molotov cocktails at members of the security forces.

The paper adds that in an email Mohamed al-Saeed, a Qatif resident, accused the Saudi state of ruthlessly suppressing the protest: "For the third day our families in Awwamiya town and Qatif live under brutal crackdown by Saudi forces, just because they went out and [asked] for our human rights and freedom."

The disturbances appear to have been triggered by the arrests of two men – a move viewed by the protesters as part of a continuing pattern of harassment. An Iranian website, ABNA, says:

"On the evening of Sunday, the Saudi authorities arrested a writer and social activist from the town of Awammiya against the backdrop of the peaceful demonstrations witnessed by the Qatif province in recent months. 

"Sources indicated that the authorities arrested the writer Ali al-Dubaisi at a checkpoint between the city of Safwa and Awammiya in Qatif. The sources acknowledged that Mr. al-Dubaisi was taken straightaway to the Department of Criminal Investigation in Qatif where authorities prevented his family from visiting or talking to him. This incident is a sequel to his earlier arrest in May when he was stopped at the same checkpoint and detained by the police station in Safwa for 24 hours and released without charging him.

"In a related development, sources indicated that police of Awammiya called the citizen Hussein Daif al-Yasseen (in his sixties) for interrogation and then deported him to Qatif penitentiary. According to family sources, al-Yasseen underwent debriefing last Friday on charges of coincidently driving his car near a peaceful demonstration."

Writing in The Independent, Patrick Cockburn suggests that one man (possibly Yasseen) was arrested in an attempt to force his son – an activist – to give himself up.

As usual with incidents of this kind in Saudi Arabia, it is difficult to be sure exactly what happened or how serious the disturbances really were. There have been sporadic protests in Shia areas for some time, though according to a Saudi activist quoted in The Independent, on this occasion police fired into the crowds rather than into the air as previously. The paper also says some of the local population are armed.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 5 October 2011.