The strife continues in Thailand. Some updates:

A day after yet more clashes, Thailand’s Prime Minister has imposed a curfew:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niIueQiXUuI&feature=player_embedded

Here’s what the violence looked like a week earlier:

CBS’ Jeff Glor talks to New York Times reporter Thomas Fuller for a first hand account of what’s happening there:

At times Bangkok has looked like a battlefield:

An opposition leader was shot in a downtown protest (GRAPHIC FOOTAGE):

Thailand’s army had nothing to do with the shooting of an opposition leader in downtown Bangkok, a military spokesman said Friday.

The Thursday incident is under investigation, said Col. Sansern Kaewkumnerd, an Army spokesman.

Violence erupted during anti-government protests in Thailand on Thursday as one demonstrator was killed and the key protest leader was shot in the head while being interviewed by journalists.

Tension soared amid the sound of explosions and gunfire and an anarchic mob atmosphere in downtown Bangkok’s Lumpini Park, where protesters had massed.

Video footage showed one protester dead on the pavement. There was also footage of Red Shirt movement leader Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol lying on the ground, dressed in camouflage, as frantic protesters attempted to move him and get help.

Tom Fuller of the International Herald Tribune told CNN he was among those interviewing the renegade general — better known as Seh Daeng, or Red Commander — when he was shot.

One of the more radical leaders in Thailand’s wide-ranging protest movement, Khattiya appeared to be bleeding from a he
ad wound. Footage from the hospital showed medics covering his face as he was brought in on a stretcher amid a throng of media.

He was in critical condition, his guards said.

While it was unknown whether Thailand’s military or government was behind the shooting, the government has previously made it clear it would shoot at what it called armed terrorists. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

A policeman who saw Khattiya’s wounds told CNN that he might have been shot by a sniper.

Khattiya’s shooting increased volatility on the streets. More gunfire rang out afterward, according to witnesses. It was not immediately clear whether they stemmed from Red Shirt retaliation.

The Sydney Morning Herald says events have now reached a “flash point”:

The conflict in Thailand has reached a turning point, with the army demanding all women and children leave a fortified protest camp in the centre of Bangkok by 6pm, Sydney time, today as the death toll from four days of bloody street battles rose to 25.

The Thai army has warned protesters to leave the camp before they begin a final offensive to remove anybody left behind.

There were plans for a curfew which the army later dropped as bloodshed continued unabated for a fourth straight day.

Foreign embassies have closed their doors, and several countries, including the United States, have issued statements warnings citizens not to travel to Bangkok under any circumstances.

The Department of Foreign Affairs advised people to reconsider travel to anywhere in Thailand because of ”widening political unrest and civil disorder occurring in Bangkok and other parts of the country”.

Australia’s embassy will not open today after gun battles raged on the street outside over the past two days.

Soldiers have strung razor wire across Sathorn Road, close to the embassy, while protesters burned telephone boxes, tyres and car parts outside the embassy. Thai media have reported two protesters were shot by snipers in a closed service station next door to the Australian mission.

As the army slowly strangled the Red Shirts’ central city protest site yesterday, they declared two parts of the city, at Din Daeng and Bon Kai, live-fire zones. Senior generals have threatened that anybody walking into those zones will be shot on sight.

In response, the Red Shirts sought to gain whatever extra territory they could across the city, hastily constructing new barricades made from tyres and car parts, and where threatened, setting them on fire. Several houses were also burned, and there were reports closed businesses and buildings in the no-man’s land between the Red Shirts and the army were being attacked.

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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