Thai Troops Clash With Protesters

BANGKOK — Sporadic violence continued in the Thai capital on Friday as protesters challenged soldiers deployed around their encampment and fired homemade rockets at hovering helicopters.

Troops and the protesters — the so-called red shirts — confronted each other Friday near the spot where the shooting of an anti-government general by a sniper on Thursday night touched off an evening of violence. Gunshots were heard on Friday morning, and according to one witness, men with firebombs attempted to set fire to military vehicles around noon.

The renegade general, Khattiya Sawatdiphol, 58, had become a symbol of the lawlessness and impunity that have torn Thailand apart as the protests have pitted the nation’s poor against its establishment.

The New York Times