By Ambika Ahuja and Martin Petty,
Photograph by: Sukree Sukplang, Reuters, Reuters
Troops and rioting anti-government demonstrators battled through the night and into this morning, intensifying a violent political conflict that erupted in gunfire Friday and turned Bangkok's commercial district into a bloody battlefield.
Ten people have been killed and at least 125 were wounded, including three journalists -- two Thais and a Canadian working for France 24 television -- since the fighting erupted Thursday night, according to the Erawan medical centre.
Troops battled through last night with protesters who hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails on roads surrounding an area of luxury hotels and shopping malls they have occupied for nearly six weeks, witnesses said.
The violence left the city of 15 million tense, with gunfire and loud blasts heard on major roads where protesters faced off with the army as it battled to establish a perimeter around the sprawling encampment, with the intent of starving out the protesters.
The turbulence adds to a five-year crisis that pits a royalist urban elite who back Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva against rural and urban poor, many of which have adopted red as a protest colour, who say they are disenfranchised.
The "red shirts" broadly support former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist billionaire ousted in a 2006 coup and convicted of corruption.
A journalist among a group of demonstrators north of the site said violence had intensified during the night. Multiple blasts and gunshots were heard, followed by loud cheers from the protesters, who refused to disperse.
Thai television showed footage of injured protesters being loaded into ambulances after street battles with soldiers that appeared to be spreading towards a major intersection.
The military said some people among the protesters fired handguns and grenades on Friday, causing chaos.
Fires blazed in the road as troops closed off streets after firing volleys of warning shots at protesters who hurled Molotov cocktails and set piles of tires alight in a commercial area dotted with hotels, banks and Western embassies.
The fresh wave of violence follows an assassination attempt on Thursday on renegade general Khattiya Sawasdipol, a military adviser to the red shirts, who was critically wounded while speaking to reporters. He had brain surgery and is on life support.
Much of the city was braced for a crackdown at the main protest site where thousands of the red-shirted demonstrators, including women and children, have gathered, protected by medieval-like walls made from tires and wooden staves soaked in kerosene and topped by razor wire.
Army spokesmen Sansern Kaewkamnerd on Friday said there were an estimated 500 armed "terrorists" among the thousands of protesters in the city.
A source close to army chief Anupong Paochinda said more troop reinforcements would be deployed, fearing more protesters would arrive to surround and attack soldiers.
The protesters say Oxford-educated Prime Minister Abhisit lacks a popular mandate after coming to power in a controversial parliamentary vote influenced by the politically powerful military.
The two months of protests have spiralled into a crisis that has killed 36 people, wounded more than 1,400, paralyzed parts of Bangkok, scared off investors and squeezed the economy.
Source: The Vancouver Sun
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