Demonstrators set a police car on fire during clashes with riot police in Manama, Bahrain, Dec. 20.

MANAMA, Bahrain, Dec. 23--Security forces conducted sweeps through Shiite villages in Bahrain on Saturday, arresting several protesters involved in a week of demonstrations against the Sunni-led government, witnesses and opposition groups said.
Large numbers of police could be seen around the northern villages where protests erupted on Thursday, sparked by the death of a demonstrator earlier in the week. Police also set up numerous security checkpoints throughout the small Persian Gulf island kingdom, AP said.
Abdul-Jalil Khalil, a parliamentarian with the Shiite opposition Wefaq bloc, said that Sanabis, a village on the outskirts of the capital Manama, was “under siege“ for the fourth night and its entrance blocked by checkpoints.
“I saw drivers harshly beaten after being forced out of their cars on the pretext police were looking for suspects,“ he said.
The Haq Movement for Liberty and Democracy, another opposition group, issued a statement saying at least 23 people had been detained and three had to be hospitalized after being abused by police.
An Interior Ministry official confirmed that security forces made arrests but would not say how many had been detained.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, also confirmed checkpoints had been set up in areas where there had been unrest.
Hundreds of family members of the detained staged an hour-long sit-in outside the police station in the village of Bani Jamra on Saturday evening, demanding information about the incarcerated.
A similar sit-in at the southern village of Malkiya turned violent and relatives were dispersed.
Shiites account for about 70 percent of Bahrain’s 450,000 citizens, but the ruling family is Sunni.
Economic disparities between the ruling elite and the poorer majority have contributed to feelings of marginalization among Shiites, who have waged an occasionally violent campaign against the government.
The clashes began on Monday, during demonstrations marking 10 years since a leading Shiite figure died in a wave of protests over perceived discrimination of the Muslim sect by the Sunni rulers of the country.
One demonstrator, Ali Jassem, died after inhaling tear gas in Monday’s clashes and protests flared anew.

BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS, Dec. 23--Israel and Hamas on Sunday ruled out any truce talks amid what Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described as a “real war“ between the army and Palestinian resistance groups in the Gaza Strip.
“There is no other way to describe what’s happening there (in Gaza) other than real war between the army and Palestinian groups,“ Olmert said at the weekly Israeli cabinet meeting, AFP reported.
Olmert said Israel would not hold truce talks with democratically-elected Hamas.
Hamas also said it would not hold any ceasefire talks unless Israel stopped its military aggressions in the territory that have killed at least 20 people over the past week.
“It’s too early to talk about the truce as long as the aggression continues against the Palestinian people... the Palestinian people have a right to continue resistance,“ said Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwane.
In another violation of international laws, Israel plans to enlarge two settlements in occupied Palestinian territory next year, officials said on Sunday, casting yet another shadow over revived Middle East peace talks.
Israel has set aside 25 million dollars in the 2008 budget to expand the Maale Adumim settlement in the occupied West Bank and in the Har Homa settlement in east Beit-ul-Moqaddas, the anti-settlement group Peace Now’s head Yariv Oppenheimer told AFP.
Israel’s Pensioner Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan confirmed the report.
About 250 new housing units are to be constructed in Maale Adumim and 500 in Har Homa, known to Palestinians as Jebel Abu Ghneim, Peace Now said.
Palestinians warned that the move could hamper the peace talks revived at a November US conference after a near seven-year hiatus, with Palestinian Authority chief Mahmud Abbas calling settlements the most serious obstacle to the relaunched talks.
“We can’t understand these frantic settlement activities at a time when we are talking about final status negotiations,“ Abbas was quoted as saying on Sunday by WAFA, the official news service of the Palestinian Authority.
“We have begun negotiations and they face obstacles, the most prominent of which is the issue of settlements, which has held us back for so long,“ he said at a meeting of local Fatah leaders.
The international community never recognized Israeli sovereignty over east Beit-ul-Moqaddas.

ANKARA, Turkey, Dec. 23--Turkey’s military said it attacked Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq Saturday for the third time in less than a week, bombing and shelling positions and warning more will follow.
“Turkish aircraft attacked between 1:35 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. major positions of the terrorist organization“ PKK, before Turkish artillery shelled the area for 15 minutes, the military said in a statement on its website, AFP reported.
It gave no details on targets, saying more information would be given next week and that it would carry out more operations despite harsh winter conditions in the mountainous region.
The Turkish television channel NTV said the raids were in the Amadiyah area of northern Iraq.
“It will become well understood how effective the operations against the terrorist operations are,“ the military’s statement said. The PKK “no longer has a chance of success“ against the Turkish army.
In northern Iraq, Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga security force, said Turkish warplanes had hit isolated Kurdish villages.
“In the afternoon Turkish warplanes entered northern Iraqi airspace in an area called Al-Amadiyah. Later at around 4:00 p.m. they bombed Iraqi Kurdish villages. We do not know the extent of damage.
But these areas are largely deserted and are along the border with Turkey,“ Yawar told AFP.

Uzbek voters stand in a line before casting their votes at a polling station in Tashkent, Dec. 23.

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, Dec. 23--Uzbeks head to the polls on Sunday in an election certain to extend President Islam Karimov’s long rule and criticized by the opposition and human rights activists as a Soviet-style contest.
In power since 1989, Karimov is accused by international rights groups of violating basic freedoms in his Central Asian homeland, Reuters reported.
Karimov was condemned in the West in 2005 when troops opened fire on a protest in the town of Andizhan.
“Under no circumstances one should accept this election as legitimate,“ said Nigara Khidoyatova, leader of the unregistered opposition Ozod Dekhkonlar party.
“We live in an ugly and amoral regime which admits no human values. And the main element of this are lies and falsification. The election ... is just a show for Western nations.“
On Sunday, Karimov faces a line-up analysts say is designed to give the election the veneer of a democratic vote.
Uzbekistan, which borders Afghanistan, is at the heart of a geopolitical power struggle between the West and Russia which sees Central Asia as its traditional sphere of interest.
Karimov, who won the previous election in 2000 with 92 percent of the ballot, has vowed to hold a transparent vote and bring more democracy if re-elected.
“Our main principle is ... transparency and openness,“ said Central Election Commission Chairman Mirzoulugbek Abdusalomov.
From Uzbekistan’s western deserts near the Aral Sea to the fertile plains of the Ferghana valley, more than 16 million eligible voters will cast their ballots between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m.
There are no registered opposition parties in Uzbekistan and most opposition leaders live in exile abroad. Public criticism of Karimov is taboo.
Human rights activists say there are more than 5,000 political prisoners in Uzbek jails.