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Bartamaha (Nairobi):- At least five explosions struck the business district of Bangkok on Thursday evening, killing one person and wounding at least 75 others as rival groups of protesters rallied and shouted insults at each other across a military barricade.

Two explosions went off on a raised walkway of Bangkok’s elevated train system and another went off near the Dusit Thani hotel, causing people to flee for shelter at a nearby restaurant and shops.

The causes of the blasts were not immediately known. Local television and newspaper Web sites said they were caused by M-79 grenades.

“I’m scared to death,” said Samai Moonsang, a tour guide who was passing by on a motorbike. “It happened right in front of me.”

Pro-government protesters urged troops to attack the anti-government red shirts, shouting, “Fight, fight!”

Television images showed two wounded people being loaded into the back of a pickup truck and four others into the back of a van. Another was carried by soldiers on a makeshift stretcher. Several others, covered in blood, were lifted by bystanders.

Members of the red shirt protest movement have been demonstrating in Bangkok for six weeks, demanding that the government resign and hold new elections. Tensions have grown as the protesters and the military have exchanged warnings and have appeared to prepare for a confrontation.

The so-called no-color demonstrators have appeared on the streets more recently — since fighting on April 10 between soldiers and red shirts left 25 people dead. Before the explosions, which occurred after 8 p.m., groups of red shirts and no-colors were shouting insults at each other and singing rival songs.

Earlier in the day, antigovernment demonstrators stopped a train carrying military vehicles in northeastern Thailand, underlining the impunity the red shirts and the Thai government’s weakening control of the populous hinterland.

Protesters, who feared that military equipment was being shipped to Bangkok as part of a possible crackdown, swarmed the train Wednesday at a station in the northeastern city of Khon Kaen, about or 280 miles north of Bangkok. On Thursday, they demanded that 10 red shirt protesters be allowed to accompany the train to ensure that it was not bound for Bangkok, where the protesters have taken control over a crucial neighborhood in the capital.

“I’m going to make sure this equipment isn’t used to hurt our people in Bangkok,” said Chamnien Polnum, 50, a shopkeeper who was one of the protesters planning to ride the train southward.

Several explosions rattled Bangkok’s financial district

Protesters in Bangkok have spent recent days fortifying their control over one of the wealthiest neighborhoods with sharpened bamboo poles, piles of tires and other primitive defenses while soldiers patrolled the streets of a nearby business district.

With many hotels and shopping malls closed and a rising number of Bangkok residents expressing exasperation at the crippling six-week standoff between protesters and the beleaguered government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, the military has toughened its official statements toward the protesters.

“Time is running out for the red shirts,” Col. Sansern Keawkunnerd, a spokesman of a government body created to address the crisis, said on Thursday. He estimated the number of protesters in Bangkok at 14,000.

After a failed crackdown earlier this month that left 25 people dead, analysts question whether the nation’s leaders have the stomach for another attempt at dislodging the protesters, who are demanding that the government step down.

Protest leaders have made veiled threats about damage to the gleaming shopping malls and hotels in downtown Bangkok, many of which have closed their doors but remain vulnerable.

In the event of a crackdown, “there might be some people who will try to save their lives by seeking shelter inside the malls,” Nattawut Saikua, one of the protest leaders, said. “We cannot control people who are trying to survive.”

Kriangkrai Punsing, one of several hundred private security guards sent to protect the malls, said he and his colleagues had been told their primary mission was to protect the shops’ inventory, a job that he said might be futile.

Mr. Kriangkrai said he had overheard protesters discussing plans to raid the malls if the military moves in.

“Things will be out of control if a crackdown happens, no matter what plans are,” he said.

A crackdown could also have wider consequences across the country.

Explosions in recent days damaged pylons supporting high-tension wires supplying electricity to Bangkok and a jet fuel depot. No one has claimed responsibility for those attacks and others carried out on bank branches and military installations. But taken together they suggest a campaign by shadowy elements in Thailand to stir fear and create a sense of instability.

The red shirts have garnered widespread support and sympathy in Thailand’s vast northeastern rice-growing hinterland, including among local officials, the military and police.

Num Chaiya, a D.J. at a local radio station in Khon Kaen, Red Station Radio, said it was military wives who had called to alert him about the train heading south. The wives, Mr. Num said, believed that weapons were being moved to Bangkok to disperse protesters. Mr. Num and other D.J.’s then summoned listeners to block the train at the station, and hundreds of people responded.

“The soldiers told me the train was going to the south, but we can’t believe anything this government says,” he said.

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Source:- nytimes

Poypiti Amatatham contributed reporting.

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