Bangkok:
Thai troops opened fire at a fortified encampment of anti-government protesters in central Bangkok on Wednesday.
Troops positioned on nearby streets and on an overpass overlooking the encampment fired automatic rifles sporadically at the encampment.
There was no sustained shooting.
Other troops fired water cannons at the encampment. Some troops were also seen crouching on the elevated tracks of a light rail system that runs over the encampment.
The firing came after a large number of troops and armoured personnel carriers gathered at the edges of the encampment at daybreak amid reports of a final assault on the area the protesters have occupied for weeks.
Hundreds of troops and police, many armed with M-16 assault rifles, were seen in nearby streets and alleys.
A government building was on fire in another part of Bangkok. At least 39 people have been killed and more than 300 people wounded in seven days of clashes in Bangkok.
Thailand's government rejected so-called Red Shirt protesters' latest offer to negotiate on Tuesday and insisted there would be no talks until the anti-government movement abandoned the upmarket areas of central Bangkok it has taken over.
The government estimated that only 3-thousand people remain in the downtown encampment, down from 5-thousand on Sunday and 10-thousand last week.
The Red Shirts are demanding that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve Parliament and call early elections.
They say the current administration came to power through manipulation of the courts and the backing of the powerful military, and that it goes against results of a 2007 election to restore democracy after a military coup.
The protesters' two-month standoff deteriorated into street clashes last Thursday after a military adviser to the Red Shirts was shot by an apparent sniper, just after the army surrounded the protest zone in an attempt to cut off supplies of food and water.
Clashes erupted between soldiers firing live ammunition and hundreds of protesters with homemade weapons.
Troops positioned on nearby streets and on an overpass overlooking the encampment fired automatic rifles sporadically at the encampment.
There was no sustained shooting.
Other troops fired water cannons at the encampment. Some troops were also seen crouching on the elevated tracks of a light rail system that runs over the encampment.
The firing came after a large number of troops and armoured personnel carriers gathered at the edges of the encampment at daybreak amid reports of a final assault on the area the protesters have occupied for weeks.
Hundreds of troops and police, many armed with M-16 assault rifles, were seen in nearby streets and alleys.
A government building was on fire in another part of Bangkok. At least 39 people have been killed and more than 300 people wounded in seven days of clashes in Bangkok.
Thailand's government rejected so-called Red Shirt protesters' latest offer to negotiate on Tuesday and insisted there would be no talks until the anti-government movement abandoned the upmarket areas of central Bangkok it has taken over.
The government estimated that only 3-thousand people remain in the downtown encampment, down from 5-thousand on Sunday and 10-thousand last week.
The Red Shirts are demanding that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve Parliament and call early elections.
They say the current administration came to power through manipulation of the courts and the backing of the powerful military, and that it goes against results of a 2007 election to restore democracy after a military coup.
The protesters' two-month standoff deteriorated into street clashes last Thursday after a military adviser to the Red Shirts was shot by an apparent sniper, just after the army surrounded the protest zone in an attempt to cut off supplies of food and water.
Clashes erupted between soldiers firing live ammunition and hundreds of protesters with homemade weapons.
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