AFP/Manama

Thousands of opposition supporters demonstrated yesterday in a Shia Muslim village near the Bahraini capital, witnesses said, a day after a car bomb wounded four policemen in another Shia town.

The kingdom has been rocked by sporadic violence since its security forces crushed a month of Arab Spring-inspired democracy protests by Shias in 2011.

Yesterday afternoon supporters of the February 14 Coalition youth group demonstrated in the Shia village of Jad Fahs outside Manama demanding “democratic changes”.

Witnesses said thousands of people flooded the streets waving the national flag and shouting slogans against “dictatorship” and an end to “tyranny”.

On Thursday night, assailants remotely detonated a bomb planted in a car as a police patrol drove by in the Shia village of Salha, the interior ministry said.

“Four policemen were slightly wounded” in the explosion, said the ministry, adding that an investigation had been launched to find the perpetrators of the “terrorist act”.

Clashes also erupted in other Shia-populated villages around Manama on Thursday evening when riot police intervened to disperse demonstrations called by the February 14 Coalition, witnesses said.

The protesters hurled firebombs and stones at the security forces, who responded by firing teargas and stun grenades.

The latest unrest came after the resumption on Wednesday of a national dialogue aimed at ending the kingdom’s political deadlock, following a two-month summer break.

Led by the influential Shia group Al Wefaq, the opposition is taking part in the dialogue while keeping up street protests to call for reform.

At least 80 people have been killed in Bahrain since Arab Spring-inspired pro-democracy protests erupted in February 2011, according to the International Federation for Human Rights.