The protesters also burned the US flag during the rallies.

The anti-US rallies came days after the US State Department announced that Washington is resuming sales of weapons to Bahrain. Rights activists and Bahraini opposition groups have condemned the decision, saying it could encourage further human rights violations in the Persian Gulf country.

The resumption of arms sales follows a recent visit to Washington by Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman Hamid Al Khalifa, who met senior US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Matar Matar, a spokesperson for the main opposition party al-Wefaq, has said that most Bahrainis oppose the US plan to resume selling weapons to their country.

“Bahrainis are disappointed by this decision. The situation is moving from bad to worse. This arms deal the government will interpret as a green light to continue the arrests,” Matar said.

Rights groups have repeatedly accused Washington of turning a blind eye to suppression of protests in Bahrain, which is home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, while showing strong support for opposition movements in other Middle East countries, including Syria.

Bahrainis have been staging demonstrations since mid-February 2011, demanding political reforms and a constitutional monarchy, which later changed to an outright call for the ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa family following its brutal crackdown on popular protests.

Scores of people have been killed and many others have been injured in the Saudi-backed crackdown on peaceful protesters in Bahrain.

“Bahrain is part of Muslim World and we are defending it and its nations’ rights against the enemies,” he underlined.

Mamousta Rasti slammed the planned union between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia as underscored,” the enemies of Islam should know that Muslims’ freedom is not buyable and they cannot stop or blunt the spread of Islamic Awakening wave in the region.”

Referring to the plan of annexing Bahrain by Saudi Arabia, the Sunni scholar pointed out,” Muslims will not be reticent against such plot.”

The Islamic Scholar advised the United Nations Human Rights Council to issue an acceptable statement to condemn the crimes of Bahrain regime.

Saudi Arabia is seeking to merge with Bahrain in line with plans to unify the six Arab member states of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council ([P]GCC).

The [P]GCC members, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, met in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Monday to discuss closer “union” among the six countries.

They failed to make a concrete decision on forming a confederation that would initially merge Saudi Arabia with Bahrain but agreed to continue further discussions over the plan, which was put forward by Saudi Arabia.

In December 2011, Saudi King Abdullah urged the council members to move “beyond the stage of cooperation and into the stage of unity in a single entity.”

The Saudi plan would give Manama internal political autonomy while Riyadh would stay in charge of the country’s military affairs.

Hujjat-ol-Islam Seyyed Mohammad Saeedi, Trusteeship of Hazrat Masoumeh shrine in the holy city of Qom warned against movements which aim at damaging monotheists movements, reported Taqrib News Agency (TNA).

“Enemies in the past filled Kabaa with idols and Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and Imam Ali (AS) and today Wahhabism is after hurting Islam and Shi’ism from within,” he said.

He urged Muslims to be constantly vigil to confront the plots of the enemies.

Friday Prayer leader of Qom noted pondering the holy Qur’an opens and paves the ways for people.

“If the Western parties follow the Istanbul pattern in [the upcoming] talks and demonstrate their good will to us, there will be a possibility of reviving their [Iranians] lost trust,” Hosseini told Italy’s official news agency, ANSA, on Friday.

The latest round of the talks between Iran and the P5+1 group — Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States plus Germany — over Tehran’s nuclear energy program was held in the Turkish city of Istanbul on April 14. Both sides hailed the discussions as constructive.

They also agreed to hold the next round of the talks in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on May 23, 2012.

“The Istanbul negotiations pivoted principally on the approach of dialog and cooperation, and the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is a basis on which the rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran to have peaceful nuclear technology are recognized,” the Iranian diplomat added.

He further noted that the “unreal remarks” made by some officials of the P5+1 countries are “in contradiction to” the constructive atmosphere prevailing after the Istanbul talks.

The US, Israel and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran has repeatedly dismissed Western allegations over its nuclear activities, arguing that as a committed signatory to the NPT and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Amir Abdollahian made the remarks in a meeting with Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba in Windhoek on Friday.

In the meeting, Hossein Amir-Abdulahian condemned alien interference and terrorist acts in Syria, and stressed Iran’s support for Syrian people and reform plans of President Bashar al-Assad.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are blamed for the terrorist blasts in Syria as they have overtly and covertly rendered logistical and financial support for armed rebels and terrorist groups in Syria.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.

The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.

In October, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of stirring unrests in Syria once again.

The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Director for Exploration Seyed Mahmoud Mohaddes said the company plans to extend exploratory activities from West and Southwest to Northern and Northeastern country.

“Yet, exploration will still be more concentrated in the West and Southwest,” the official told Shana, adding that drilling operations which started last year in six oil and gas fields, including Khayyam, Farzad A and Delavaran, will continue this year.

Mohaddes said seismic operations which started last year in 210 kilometers of the area surrounding Farzad B in Persian Gulf completed early this year.

He further described the last year performance of his department as “successful”, saying that his department’s activities last year were three times more than its obligations.

Last December Iran’s Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi announced discovery of a new field with remarkable gas reserves in the waters of the Caspian Sea which was named Kochak khan Jangali.

Qassemi said oil industry experts could reach the reservoir following more than 2400 meters drilling adding the reservoir is completely within the Iranian side of the sea locating on the edge of Iran’s maritime border.

About 2,500 people, including hundreds of nurses, attended the event in a downtown Chicago square on Friday and a dozen people were arrested, Reuters reported.

About 150 Chicago police officers circled the square, named after Richard J. Daley, who was the mayor of Chicago during the violent police crackdown on anti-Vietnam War protesters at the 1968 Democratic convention.

Thousands of protesters from across the United States gathered in Chicago ahead of the May 21-22 NATO summit, when representatives from 60 countries are scheduled to meet to discuss several issues, especially the war in Afghanistan.

Tom Hayden, who attended the 1968 anti-war demonstration, addressed the crowd, saying, “It’s been 44 years since I had a permit to speak in Chicago.”

Nurses attending the demonstration called for a “Robin Hood” tax on financial institutions’ transactions to counterbalance government funding cuts that have affected healthcare, education, and social services.

“The solution is a tiny, tiny tax,” said Deborah Burger, who spoke on behalf of the nurses.

A banner reading, “Nurses campaign to heal the world, An economy for the 99 percent, Tax Wall Street, National Nurses United,” was exhibited in Daley Plaza.

A young demonstrator said, “We’re here because we’re sick of Wall Street profiting off the wars that NATO starts.”

Chicago police have been preparing for the event for nearly a year, and officers from police departments as far away as Philadelphia and Milwaukee are expected to assist local forces in security measures and crowd control.

In a statement released by Hezbollah Media Relations, the party said the responsibility of the city’s stability was the duty of Tripoli’s people, political sides along with the security services and the army, in which they might cooperate to secure calmness.

“Hezbollah praises efforts spared in order to resolve the crisis. The party also praises the cooperation that took place between the army and the security forces in order to secure stability.”

“Hezbollah calls for a calm stand over what is taking place in order to figure out lessons and then to resolve the crisis.”
The party also criticized the “provocative political rhetoric which inflamed the crisis in Tripoli”, calling on all parties, officials and media outlets to hold their responsibilities in order to secure stability in Tripoli.

In an exclusive interview with IRNA on Friday, Sheikh Abdullah al-Dabbaq condemned the proposed plan for the merger of Bahrain with Saudi Arabia, arguing that some Arab countries along with the hegemonic powers have thrown their weight behind the project.

He highlighted that Riyadh and Washington are making every endeavor to ratchet up pressure on Iran, and want to make use of Bahrain as a strategic base to this end.

The senior Bahraini cleric said he did not think the plan would materialize given the resistance of the people of Bahrain and the atmosphere in the Islamic world.

Saudi Arabia seeks to legitimize its criminal acts and policies in Bahrain through taking over the sovereignty of the Persian Gulf country, al-Dabbaq said, adding that, however, Riyadh is ignorant of the fact that the Bahraini nation and scholars are vigilant and will never allow it to implement its plan.

According to the recent reports, Saudi Arabia is seeking to merge with Bahrain in line with plans to unify the six Arab member states of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council ([P]GCC).

The Saudi plan would give Manama internal political autonomy while Riyadh would stay in charge of the country’s military affairs.

Since the beginning of Bahrain’s revolution in February 2011, large numbers of anti-government protesters have poured into the streets across the oil-rich state to call on the ruling family to leave power.

Many people have either lost their lives or sustained injuries in Bahrain as a result of the continuing systematic clampdown on anti-regime rallies, and the deployment of foreign forces to stifle public demands. Thousands more have been arrested or expelled from their jobs.

“A car bomb has exploded in the Ghazi Ayyash neighborhood of Dayr al-Zawr,” the television reported on Monday.

The report added that the “terrorist attack” caused an unknown number of casualties. It gave no further details.

Syrian cities have been targeted by a wave of explosions in the past months.

Earlier this month, at least 55 people were killed and about 400 others were injured in two bombings near a military intelligence building in Damascus.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that al-Qaeda was responsible for the deadly bombings.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011.

While the West and the Syrian opposition say the government is responsible for the killings, Damascus blames “outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups” for the unrest and insists that it is being orchestrated from abroad.