Troops battle protesters in Bangkok streets

Thai troops fired warning shots and tear gas in clashes with petrol bomb-hurling protesters in Bangkok, leaving 70 injured as the government launched a crackdown to enforce a state of emergency.

Demonstrators charged military lines with hijacked buses in a battle at a key junction, where soldiers unleashed long volleys of automatic weapon fire into the air as they advanced on the red-shirted activists.

The supreme military commander vowed to restore order using "all possible means," a day after embattled Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announced a state of emergency to curb protesters who had disrupted a key Asian summit.

In a televised address on today, Abhisit accused the supporters of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra of stockpiling weapons and warned peaceful demonstrators to disperse before the government took further action.

"Those who want to help the government restore normality can return home," he said. "The government has carefully mapped out a plan to implement the law."

Abhisit said that 70 people were wounded, 23 of them soldiers, but rejected claims on a protesters' radio station that four had been killed.

Thailand has endured years of political turmoil but this is the biggest crisis that Abhisit has faced since he came to power in December, following a controversial court ruling that drove Thaksin's allies out of office.

Troops first moved before dawn to secure Bangkok's busy Din Daeng intersection, with soldiers firing hundreds of rounds into the air after protesters pelted them with rocks and molotov cocktails, AFP reporters said.

The government announced it had secured the area but demonstrators played cat-and-mouse with soldiers throughout the morning, before a second round of clashes erupted at lunchtime at the nearby Victory Monument landmark.

Protesters set fire to hijacked buses, but as soldiers advanced with water cannons, the demonstrators drove another three buses at the lines of military, prompting them to open fire for several minutes, AFP reporters said.

Soldiers unleashed deafening bursts of automatic gunfire for several minutes in a number of locations after the bus attacks.

"We reserve the right to use weapons in self-defence," the military's Supreme Commander, Songkitti Jaggabatara, said in a television address.

The chaos erupted just streets away from shopping malls where tourists who had come to Bangkok for the Thai New Year festival were faced with closed signs.

"You can't see where the situation is going. It's pretty scary and I have two little ones with me," said 43-year-old tourist Sharon Pangilinan, from the Philippines.

Troops deployed at train stations

Thailand has endured years of political turmoil but this is the biggest crisis that Abhisit has faced since he came to power in December, following a controversial court ruling that drove Thaksin's allies out of office.

Soldiers were deployed at train stations and at strategic locations including the electricity authority.

But authorities made no effort to clear the main body of some 10,000 so far peaceful protesters who defied the state of emergency and remained camped out at Government House, where Abhisit's offices in the capital are located.

"Abhisit, are you still a human being? This is a most inhuman act, to crack down on unarmed protesters," protest leader Jatuporn Prompan told the crowd there.

It is the first time the army has taken action since Abhisit ordered tanks and soldiers onto the streets of Bangkok on Sunday. The military refused to enforce emergency decrees by previous pro-Thaksin governments last year.

He is under intense pressure to curb the unrest after the "Red Shirt" protesters stormed the venue of an Asian summit Saturday, forcing it to be cancelled and leaders to be evacuated - some by helicopter.

The trouble moved to Bangkok yesterday, where demonstrators attacked a convoy carrying Abhisit out of the interior ministry, and fired shots in the air after police arrested the leader of the summit raid.

Demonstrations also reportedly spread to northern Thailand, Thaksin's stronghold, where he is popular among the rural poor. He remains loathed by the Bangkok-based power centres of the palace, military and bureaucracy.

Thaksin, who lives in exile to avoid a two-year jail term for corruption, stoked up his followers by phone late last night, saying: "You don't have to be frightened of this state of emergency. I was the one who drafted the law. This is a golden minute. We will make history."