Thai troops open fire on protesters
Troops fired on anti-government protesters rioting near foreign embassies in Bangkok today as an army push to clear the streets sparked bloody clashes.
Violence escalated after a rogue army general regarded as a military advisor to the Red Shirt protesters was shot in the head yesterday evening, possibly by a sniper, leaving him in a critical condition.
Street battles that followed killed one Red Shirt and wounded 12 other people, including a Thai photographer and a foreign journalist.
Today another protester was shot dead during the clashes.
With security deteriorating and hopes of a peaceful resolution to the two-month stand-off fading, unrest plunged Thailand deeper into political uncertainty, threatening the country's stability, economy and already-decimated tourism industry.
Today's violence was centred on a small area home to several foreign embassies.
Fighting has now killed 31 people and injured hundreds since the Red Shirts, mostly rural poor, began camping in the capital on March 12, in a bid to force out Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
They claim his coalition government came to power illegally through manipulation of the courts and the backing of the powerful military, which in 2006 forced the populist premier favoured by the Red Shirts, Thaksin Shinawatra, from office in a coup.
Last week, Abhisit offered November elections, raising hopes that a compromise could be reached. They were dashed after Red Shirt leaders made more demands.
Late last night the army moved to seal off the Red Shirt barricaded encampment which covers a square mile in an upmarket commercial district of the capital. Some 10,000 protesters, women and children among them, have crammed into the area.
"We are being surrounded. We are being crushed. The soldiers are closing in on us. This is not a civil war yet, but it's very, very cruel," one protest leader Weng Tojirakarn said.
Protesters captured and vandalised two military water cannon trucks at a key junction in the business district, just outside the Red Shirt encampment, which is fortified with bamboo stakes and tyres. They ripped the cannon from its moorings and used its plastic barrel to shoot fireworks from behind a sandbag bunker they had commandeered from soldiers.
They later set fire to tyres and a police bus that sent thick plumes of smoke into the sky. Soldiers fired automatic rifles repeatedly.
A Thai photographer was shot in the leg and foreign journalist was being treated in hospital..
The violence was concentrated on a small area around the Red Shirt encampment, close to the American and Japanese embassies, which were closed to the public. The nearby British, New Zealand and the Dutch embassies were also shut.
Tensions escalated after renegade army Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdiphol, who is accused of creating a paramilitary force for the Red Shirts, was shot in the head last night as he talked to reporters just inside the perimeter of the protesters' encampment.
He was taken to a hospital in a coma and was in critical condition. Doctors said he could die "at any moment".
It was not known who shot Khattiya, better known by the nickname Seh Daeng. But the Red Shirts blamed a government sniper.
The two-day clashes marked the worst continuous episode of violence since April 10, when 25 people were killed and more than 800 injured in clashes between Red Shirts and troops in Bangkok's historic area. Four more people were killed in subsequent clashes.
