A "savage and unjustified" police assault on protesters in Manama that left two people dead will have "catastrophic repercussions", the leader of Bahrain's main Shiite opposition said on Thursday.
"Security solutions can't resolve crises," Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the Islamic National Accord Association (INAA), told AFP.
"This attack was a mistaken decision which will have catastrophic repercussions on the stability of Bahrain," he said, describing the police operation as "a savage and unjustified attack against a peaceful assembly."
Two people were killed and dozens more injured after security forces moved in overnight, using tear gas to clear the protest camp in Pearl Square in what some demonstrators said was a sudden attack.
Officers had also fired rubber bullets, said Salman, and two of the 70 injured were in a serious condition.
Security forces had advanced from several directions at the same time, making it difficult for demonstrators to escape, said Salman.
He confirmed that a demonstration called for Saturday by the INAA and other opposition groups would go ahead.
The latest deaths bring to four the number of demonstrators killed since the protests began on Monday in response to messages posted on facebook, in the wake of the successful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
Thousands of demonstrators had been occupying Manama's Pearl Square since on Tuesday, after police killed two young Shiite demonstrators during anti-government protests.
They had renamed it Tahrir (Liberation) Square, after the area in Cairo that became the focal point of an uprising that finally toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak last Friday after 18 days of nationwide protests.