Bahrain police post firebombed in Sitra: Ministry

Assailants hurled Molotov cocktails at a Bahraini police post in a Shiite village near the capital Manama overnight, an interior ministry official said on Tuesday.

Security forces "repulsed the terrorist attack against the police post in Sitra," the official said, quoted by the BNA state news agency.

He said the attack damaged "several stores in a shopping centre". There was no mention of any casualties.

A video of the incident posted on YouTube on Tuesday morning shows around 30 men, mostly in black t-shirts and some with gas masks and plastic shields, picking up glass bottles and heading in a pack down an alleyway. The video then cuts to what are presumably the ignited glass bottles rocketed into a dark lot over a street. The sound of shattering glass and the honking of passing cars can be heard.

Attacks on the security forces have intensified in the Sunni Muslim-ruled kingdom, mainly in Shiite-populated villages surrounding the capital.

Last month, assailants firebombed a police car in the Manama suburb of Hamad Town, only days after an explosion wounded a policeman in Diah village.

A bomb in the same village killed three policemen in March, the bloodiest attack on security forces since a Shiite-led uprising was quashed in early 2011.

In the same month, the country's main opposition group Al-Wefaq, also said one pro-democracy protestor had been killed and more than 180 arrested.

Bahrain, home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, remains deeply divided three years after peaceful protests began in February 2011 with thousands of demonstrators gathered in a roundabout in the capital Manama, calling for government reforms.

Three days later, government forces broke up protests with teargas, birdshot and batons that left at least two dead and hundreds injured. After the quashed uprising, the country has seen persistent protests sparking clashes with police, scores of Shiites jailed on "terror" charges and reconciliation talks deadlocked.

The International Federation for Human Rights says at least 89 people have been killed in Bahrain since February 2011.