Thailand Latest: Curfew Extended, Violence Spreads Across Country (Al Jazeera)

UPDATE 0900 GMT: Richard Barrow, who works for a local newspaper, is posting pictures and video of the scene in Bangkok.

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Al Jazeera English carries the latest news from Thailand:

A curfew enforced in Bangkok and 23 other provinces following the country's worst political violence in 20 years has been extended for the next three days, the Thai army has said.

The extension comes a day after troops stormed an anti-government protest site in central Bangkok, resulting in the deaths of at least seven people that provoked angry protesters to set alight several buildings across the capital.

Thailand Eyewitness: Under Fire in Bangkok (Buncombe)
Thailand Latest: Fires and Curfew in Bangkok

Abhisit Vejjajiva, Thailand's prime minister, has pledged to restore peace in the country following the unrest.


"May I assure you fellow citizens that I, my government and security forces, are confident and determined to end the problems," he said in a televised address on Wednesday night." "We will overcome this."

Officials warned that security forces had been authorised to shoot looters and arsonists breaking the curfew after many red shirt protesters failed to surrender to the military following the incursion into the camp.

Arson attacks

On Thursday, fires were still burning in buildings set ablaze in Bangkok the previous day amid sporadic bursts of gunfire.

A special police unit entered a temple inside the former protest site where several hundred Red Shirt supporters, most of them women, old men and children, had sought shelter in recent days. Asssociated Press photographers said there was no resistance at the temple as police took away the group to a nearby police station.

Six key red shirt leaders handed themselves after the military offensive on Wednesday, but many of their followers launched arson attacks across the Bangkok in protest at their treatment by the military.

Among the buildings set on fire as the red shirts retreated from their protest camp were the Bangkok stock exchange building and the Central World mall, the second-largest shopping centre in Southeast Asia.

The offices of state-run Channel 3 television were also set ablaze, forcing the evacuation of its executives by helicopter. Police rescued the rest of the staff.

The English-language Nation and Bangkok Post newspapers evacuated their staff after threats from the red shirts while a large office building down the street from the Bangkok Post office was set alight.

Unrest also spread to Thailand's rural north and northeast, areas that are seen as strongholds of red shirt support.

Local media reported protesters set fire to government offices in Udon Thani and vandalised a city hall in Khon Kaen.

Udon Thani's governor asked the military to intervene. TV images showed troops retreating after being attacked by mobs in Ubon Ratchathani.

Tony Birtley, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Bangkok, confirmed that violence had spread.

"A contact of mine phoned me from Chiang Mai [in the north] saying that fire engines were set alight, property was destroyed and barricades were set up there, so the violence is spreading."

Civil war

Against this backdrop, Thaksin Shinawatra, the country's ousted prime minister whom many of the red shirts support, said he feared a military crackdown could lead to guerrilla warfare across the country.
 
"There is a theory saying a military crackdown can spread resentment and these resentful people will become guerrillas," he told the Reuters news agency by telephone.

Thaksin, who is accused by the government of bankrolling the protests and inciting unrest, denied he had undermined peace talks, saying he was not the "mastermind of the terrorists".

Larry Jagan, a Southeast Asia analyst based in Bangkok, told Al Jazeera that violence could spread as a result of the crackdown.

"The depth of mistrust and hatred [between red shirts and the government] has been escalated by the military reaction yesterday, so it's going to be very hard for any kind of reconciliation."

"I think what we are going to see is this kind of violence escalate, but not in Bangkok, throughout the north and northeast. Already, red shirt leaders had warned beforehand that if they were dispersed forcibly, they would bring the country to civil war."

"I think, although civil war might be too strong a word, we are going to see that kind of violence, that kind of distrust and that kind of division."

Wednesday's crackdown began with about 100 soldiers armed with automatic rifles and shotguns, along with several machinegun-mounted armoured personnel carriers, breaching the red shirts' barricade at the southern end of their protest site in Bangkok's Rachaprasong neighbourhood.

The armoured vehicles repeatedly rammed the barricade, made up largely of tyres, sharpened bamboo poles and razor wire, before breaking through the flattened structure.

UPDATED Thailand Latest: Fires and Curfew in Bangkok

UPDATE 1425 GMT: The overnight curfew, announced on TV channels under control of the Government, has been extended to 21 provinces across Thailand. There have been arson attacks and protests in at least seven provinces, including the burning of town halls in three major cities.



Fighting has continued in Bangkok, notably outside the Wat Patum temple.

UPDATE 1155 GMT: Associated Press summarises that fires were set at the Stock Exchange, several banks, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Electricity Authority, the high-end Central World shopping mall, and a cinema complex that collapsed.

Thailand Latest: Protestors Ready for Talks? (Fuller/Mydans)

Four protesters and an Italian news photographer were killed and about 60 people wounded in the Army's storming of the protest camp.


UPDATE 1055 GMT: Central World, Southeast Asia's second-largest department store, has been destroyed.

UPDATE 0945 GMT: Far from stopping the protests, the request of the surrendering Red Shirt leaders seems only to have prompted a spread of fighting. There are reports of at least five fires; among the buildings attacked are the Stock Exchange and Channel 3 Television. Residents are trying to flee deluxe apartment complexes.

Authorities have declared a curfew from 8 p.m. local time.

UPDATE 0735 GMT: Thai television has shown several Red Shirt leaders addressing a crowd in Lumpini Park, the centre of the protests, calling off the demonstration to avoid further bloodshed. The leaders said they would turn themselves in to Thai authorities.

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Al Jazeera English posts the latest news from Bangkok:

Thai soldiers and armoured carriers have punched through barricades and moved into the main encampment of anti-government protesters in Bangkok.

Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay, reporting from inside the breached protest site on Wednesday, said the well organised and well armed troops moved quickly through the first kilometre of the protest site, towards the main stage where the leaders of the so-called red shirts were believed to be.

But they then stopped about a kilometre from the stage amid some exchange of gunfire with red shirt guards.

At least two bodies – suspected to be killed red shirt guards - were seen being removed from the area, our correspondent said, and the Thai Red Cross has appealed for blood donations.

Jongjet Aoajenpong, the director of Police hospital, was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that an Italian journalist was shot in the stomach and "died before arriving at the hospital".

Red shirts divided

Al Jazeera's Aela Callan, also reporting from Bangkok, said women and children were still in the 3-sq-km protest area.

But the area in front of the stage appeared to be thinning out, she said, and protesters and leaders appeared divided: some seemed to want to fight the troops but others were just sitting on the ground, waiting to see what would happen.

There were also reports that at least one of the red shirt leaders had fled the scene but they could not be immediately confirmed.

About 100 soldiers armed with automatic rifles and shotguns, along with several machine gun mounted armoured personnel carriers, breached the red shirts' barricade at the southern end of their protest site on Wednesday.

The armoured vehicles had repeatedly rammed the barricade made up largely of tyres, sharpened bamboo poles and razor wire before breaking through the flattened structure.

Troops and red shirts had been periodically exchanging gunfire before the soldiers broke through the barricade.

The military appeared to be moving slowly in their operation, and it was possible that they were leaving the north relatively open for red shirts to leave their encampment.

Earlier in the morning, troops used loudspeakers to tell protesters at the protest site in Bangkok's high-end Rachaprasong shopping district to go home, saying their lives were in danger, our correspondent said.

Guerrilla war warning

Sean Boonpracong, a red shirt spokesman speaking to Al Jazeera from Bangkok, warned that if the troops entered the protest site, "this will be a second Tiananmen Square", referring to China's deadly crackdown on demonstrators in 1989.

"You will see the biggest massacre ever aired on television," he said.

And Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted Thai prime minister whom many of the red shirts support, said on Wednesday that he feared a military crackdown could lead to guerrilla warfare across the country.

"There is a theory saying a military crackdown can spread resentment and these resentful people will become guerrillas," Thaksin told the Reuters news agency by telephone.

Government claims success

The government said hours after launching the offensive on Wednesday that the "security operation ... has been successful".

Panitan Wattanayagorn, a government spokesman, also said on television that protest leaders had fled the area, and called on citizens to report protest leaders if they were spotted outside the camp.

But one of the protest leaders, Nattawut Saikua, appeared on stage in the protest zone several minutes before Panitan spoke and said he had not fled.

The government offered safe passage to unarmed, civilian protesters after moving into the protest camp and said buses were waiting to send them home.

Soldiers were heard shouting that protesters' lives were in danger if they did not surrender.

The authorities had warned the red shirts to leave their protest site by 3 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Monday, saying that those who remained faced two years in prison.

However, the protesters defied the order and the deadline passed without any action being taken.

Wednesday's military operation comes after the government rejected holding further negotiations with the red shirts until they left their rally site.

A mediation proposal, floated by a group of 64 senators in the 150-member upper house on Tuesday, was accepted by the protesters but rejected by Abhisit Vejjajiva, the prime minister.

Satit Wonghnongtaey, a government minister, said while Abhisit welcomed negotiations, the government insisted "talks will happen only after the protest has ended".

The crisis, which began when demonstrations were launched in mid-March, has now left around 70 people dead and about 1,700 wounded.