Thai authorities imposed a curfew on a jittery Bangkok after a weekend of violence that has left 25 people dead.

The government has also ordered schools to be closed from Monday as anti-government Redshirt protesters continue to battle troops through the streets of the capital.

As protesters torched a police traffic post and set fire to a barricade of tyres, sending a towering column of black smoke rising over the city, army spokesman Colonel Sunsern Kaewkumnerd said: “There will be a curfew announcement so that police and soldiers can differentiate people from terrorists.”

The violence ignited on Thursday after the army started forming a cordon around the protesters’ encampment and a sniper shot and seriously wounded a protester believed to be the Red Shirts’ military adviser.

Speaking on his weekly television program on Saturday evening, Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Prime Minister, insisted that there would be no ceasefire, and that the four day long military operation to quell protests was the only way to end the country’s two-month-long crisis.

Times