BANGKOK ��" Downtown Bangkok became a flaming battleground Wednesday as an army assault forced anti- government protest leaders to surrender, enraging followers who shot grenades and set fire to landmark buildings, cloaking the skyline in black smoke. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva tried Wednesday night to reassure the country that the government would restore calm but fires spread through the capital. His government declared a nighttime curfew, and he said in his televised address troops had been given the go-ahead to shoot at suspected arsonists. The troops had moved earlier in the day against thousands of so-called Red Shirt protesters, mostly rural poor, who had camped behind barricades in the capital's premier shopping and residential district for weeks, demanding Abhisit call immediate elections. The army used live ammunition to disperse them, drawing fire from militant Red Shirts. Officials confirmed five protesters and an Italian news photographer were confirmed killed and about 60 wounded. Witnesses said that six to eight additional dead lay in the temple where hundreds of protesters, including women and children, had sought sanctuary. Mark MacKinnon, a journalist for Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper who was with the refuge seekers, said the situation remained dangerous at Wat Pathum Vanaram, next to the abandoned protest site despite a cease-fire that allowed health workers to evacuate several injured, including a British journalist. After Red Shirt leaders gave themselves up to police on Wednesday afternoon, rioters set fires at the Stock Exchange, several banks, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Electricity Authority, Central World ��" one of Asia's biggest shopping malls ��" and a cinema that burned to ground. There were reports of looting. Firefighters retreated after protesters shot at them, and thick smoke drifted across the sky of this city of 10 million people. Sporadic clashes between troops and protesters continued in the night.
