While millions of Egyptians staged a "Victory March" feting their overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak last week after 30 years, protesters elsewhere, inspired by their success, pursued struggles against their own authoritarian rulers.

At least 60 people were wounded near Pearl Square in the Bahraini capital, Manama, a day after police swept away a protest camp from the traffic circle in the city, killing four people and wounding more than 230.

At least five people were killed in Yemen on February 18 when security forces and pro-government loyalists clashed with crowds demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 32-year rule.

In Libya, thousands of people protested in the North African country's second-biggest city of Benghazi over a security crackdown that has killed dozens of people but failed to halt the worst unrest of Muammar Gaddafi's four decades in power.

In Bahrain, Ali Ibrahim, deputy chief of medical staff at Salmaniya hospital, said 66 people had been admitted suffering wounds from the clash in Pearl Square. Four were in critical condition.

About 1,000 emotional people gathered outside a hospital, some spilling into the corridors as casualties were brought in, including one with a bloody sheet over his head.

King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa announced he had asked the crown prince to start a national dialogue "with all parties" to resolve the crisis rocking the island kingdom.

Bahrain's most revered Shi'ite cleric, Sheikh Issa Qassem, described the police attack as a "massacre" and said the government had shut the door to dialogue. But he stopped short of calling openly for street protests.

It was the worst bloodshed in the Saudi-allied Gulf island kingdom in decades and underlined the jitters of its Sunni royal family, long aware of simmering discontent among the majority Shi'ites.