Deadly attack on Thai protest camp in Bangkok

Protesters cleaned the steps of the Democracy Monument in Bangkok on Thursday morning

Three people have been killed and more than 20 others injured in an attack on an anti-government protest camp in the Thai capital, officials say.

Witnesses reported explosions and gunfire early on Thursday at a protest camp at Bangkok's Democracy Monument.

Protesters have been pressing the Senate to replace the cabinet with an appointed administration.
Later on Thursday, they forced a meeting between the government and the #Election Commission to be abandoned.

The government is trying to organise a new general election in July, after protesters disrupted the previous election in parts of the country.

A crowd led by Suthep Thaugsuban, head of the anti-government movement, broke into the Air Force base where the meeting between acting Prime Minister Niwatthamrong Boonsongphaisan and the commission was being held.

"The meeting is over, the prime minister is leaving. We cannot continue today," a member of the commission was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.

Power struggle

The attack on protesters comes days after former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was removed by a Thai court.

Protesters have been trying to oust the government since November 2013

Reports said grenades were thrown in the latest attack in the early hours of Thursday, followed by gunfire. A doctor at an emergency centre in Bangkok said the wounded had been hit by shrapnel.

Police identified two of the victims as a protester who was asleep and a protest guard who was shot.
There have been a number of attacks on the protest movement since it began its street campaign against the government last year, says the BBC's South East #Asia correspondent Jonathan Head, but this was on a larger scale than usual.

No group has said it carried out the attack but both pro- and anti-government groups are known to have armed hardliners.

#Thailand has suffered months of deadlock since the protest campaign began in November, with at least 27 people killed and hundreds wounded.

Ms Yingluck - who was removed by the Constitutional Court with several of her ministers last week - was swiftly replaced by the ruling Puea Thai party. Former Commerce Minister Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan is now serving as caretaker prime minister.

The party, which won elections in July 2011, says it will push on with a plan to hold another general election in July.

The protesters say they will obstruct this poll in the same way that they blocked an election held in February that was subsequently annulled by the courts.

Thailand has been in the grip of a power struggle since Ms Yingluck's brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, was ousted by the military as prime minister in a 2006 coup.

Mr Thaksin and his family are hated by an urban and middle-class elite who accuse them of corruption and abuse of power.
But Mr Thaksin's policies won him huge support in rural areas, and both the elections since the coup have returned Thaksin-allied governments to power.

The current anti-government protesters want to replace Ms Yingluck's administration with an unelected "people's council" which, they say, would reform the political system.

Both pro- and anti-government groups have held rallies in Bangkok in recent days, raising fears of further violence.
Source: BBC News