Demonstrators retake the streets in Bahrain

TEARS streaming down his face, mobbed by a jubilant crowd, the middle-aged paramedic punched the air and hugged anybody within reach.

Only 24 hours earlier he had been threatened with execution if he dared to return to Pearl Monument, the focal point of protests against Bahrain's al-Khalifa dynasty, to drive those who needed treatment to nearby Salmaniya hospital.

But now army and police have drawn back, allowing Khalil and more than 10,000 others to return.

''We are making history,'' said Dawood Abdullah, a computer programmer. ''We now have the upper hand. We intend to be peaceful and civilised, but we want our rights.''

The greatest cheer was reserved for the arrival at the monument of the doctors and paramedics who repeatedly ignored government instructions not to tend to the wounded.

There are signs of a power struggle within Bahrain's royal house with momentum beginning to swing from Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, who has been Prime Minister since independence in 1971, to his nephew, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, and the king's son, Crown Prince Salman.

In what some have construed as a rebuke to hawks in the family, Prince Salman said: ''I am grateful to all the wise and rational men who called for and responded to the call for calm.''

Seen as an unyielding opponent of reform, Prince Khalifa is blamed for marginalising Bahrain's Shiites, who have been largely shut out of the army, government and police force and have wallowed in poverty as Sunnis have prospered from the kingdom's construction boom.

Meanwhile, protests were also reported in Kuwait, Jordan and Algeria, while in Yemen the strife entered a ninth day as gunfire broke out in the capital Sanaa, leaving one man dead after he was shot in the neck by government supporters.