THAI PROTESTS ENTER VOLATILE NEW PHASE AFTER FATAL SHOOTINGS

[Protesters are pursuing the quixotic goal of ridding the country of the influence of Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire tycoon and former prime minister whose political party has captured the allegiance of voters in the countryside, winning every election since 2001. The protesters say they are frustrated with the dominance of Mr. Thaksin and are disillusioned with the current democratic system. They have proposed an alternative to the country’s democracy, an ill-defined people’s council made up of representatives from many professions.]

By Thomas Fuller

Rungroj Yongrit/European Pressphoto Agency

Protesters clashed with police outside a government building in Bangkok on Sunday.

BANGKOK — Thailand’s week of antigovernment demonstrations entered a dangerous and volatile phase on Sunday after shootings involving rival political camps left at least four people dead and more than 50 wounded.

Many areas of Bangkok, the sprawling metropolis that is a major hub of commerce and travel in Southeast Asia, remained unaffected by the demonstrations. But the shootings and the increasingly provocative moves by protesters spread fears that unrest could move beyond the pockets of the capital where protests — and violence — have raged.

As protesters traveled through the city by motorcycle and on foot Sunday, vowing to shut down additional government buildings, Bangkok’s largest shopping malls, which normally teem with visitors on weekends, hastily announced that they were closing their doors for the day.

Nearly 3,000 soldiers began arriving in the capital to shore up key government buildings.

Protesters are pursuing the quixotic goal of ridding the country of the influence of Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire tycoon and former prime minister whose political party has captured the allegiance of voters in the countryside, winning every election since 2001. The protesters say they are frustrated with the dominance of Mr. Thaksin and are disillusioned with the current democratic system. They have proposed an alternative to the country’s democracy, an ill-defined people’s council made up of representatives from many professions.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who is Mr. Thaksin’s youngest sister, repeatedly said over the weekend that she was open to discussions with protesters but that she would stand firm.

“I will remain here,” she told reporters Saturday, her voice cracking with emotion. “I will not flee anywhere. I may be a woman, but I have the courage to face all possible scenarios.”

After raiding and occupying the Finance Ministry last week, protesters on Sunday sought to capture Ms. Yingluck’s office. Police have fortified the area with concrete barriers and razor wire, which protesters partly dismantled under the watch of riot police officers who fired tear gas into the crowd.

The police pleaded with protesters before launching tear gas, according to The Associated Press.

“We’re all brothers and sisters,” the police shouted through a loudspeaker, according to The A.P. “Please don’t try to come in!”

Embassies in Bangkok issued warnings to their citizens Sunday, many ratcheting up the relatively mild caution they advised last week. The French Embassy sent a message that advised Bangkok residents to avoid “any unnecessary trips.”

Over the past week, protesters have broken down the gates to the army headquarters, cut power to the police headquarters and occupied parts of a large government complex that houses Thailand’s equivalent of the F.B.I.

On Sunday, they massed outside of television stations around Bangkok and demanded that the stations, including one owned by the military, switch their signal to a network associated with the protests.

Protesters also raided a state-owned telecommunications office, temporarily cutting Internet service to thousands of people and shutting down for several hours the website of the state carrier, Thai Airways.

Led by a former deputy prime minister, Suthep Thaugsuban, the protesters are a diverse group, ranging from upper-class Thais who have attended rallies in high heels and office attire to rubber farmers from southern Thailand who have long been allied with the opposition Democratic Party, which itself is affiliated with the protests.

The shootings on Saturday and in the early hours of Sunday occurred near a stadium packed with tens of thousands of government supporters known as red shirts.

Red shirts traveling to the stadium were attacked by young men who wore the symbols of the antigovernment demonstrators — whistles and arm bands with the national flag. Those attacks led to shootings between both camps.

The protests are the biggest since 2010, when the military dispersed tens of thousands of protesters occupying Bangkok’s commercial district, a violent crackdown that left more than 90 people dead.

Thailand has suffered seven years of on-and-off unrest since Mr. Thaksin, who was prime minister from 2001 to 2006, was removed from power in a military coup.

Poypiti Amatatham contributed reporting.

@ The New York Times

RECENT DRONE STRIKES STRAIN U.S. TIES WITH AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN

[That leaves airstrikes, particularly by drones, as one of the last practical military options left to the American-led military coalition in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, where there are no American military ground operations and the C.I.A. controls the drones, that has long been the case.]

By Rod Nordland And Salman Masood

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two separate but similarly bitter disagreements over drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan have complicated relations between the United States and those two countries at a delicate moment, again highlighting the political complications from America’s persistent reliance on the lethal remote-controlled weapons.

In Afghanistan, the American military commander called President Hamid Karzai late Thursday to apologize for a drone strike that resulted in civilian casualties and that gave Mr. Karzai renewed reason to refuse to sign a long-term security agreement with the United States.

In Pakistan’s tribal belt, meanwhile, what was thought to be C.I.A. drone strike on Friday killed a Pakistani militant days after a major political party, as part of its campaign to end the drone strikes, publicly named a man it said was America’s top spy in the country.

The use of these weapons, which is deeply resented, highlights the political costs to the United States of the drone campaigns, even as its range of military options in the region has started to narrow with American combat troops leaving Afghanistan.

The American military already has greatly restricted raids on Afghan homes, amid demands from Mr. Karzai for a complete ban on such operations. The raids, normally carried out by Special Operations forces to apprehend insurgent leaders, are the last routine combat missions of the United States in Afghanistan.

Afghan anger over one such raid last week led Mr. Karzai to insist on a ban, and he has said he will not sign the long-term security agreement with the United States until such operations are definitively over.

That leaves airstrikes, particularly by drones, as one of the last practical military options left to the American-led military coalition in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, where there are no American military ground operations and the C.I.A. controls the drones, that has long been the case.

There, nationalist politicians have long denounced the C.I.A.-led campaign in the tribal belt as a flagrant breach of sovereignty, and are now employing new means to frustrate it.

As part of that effort, the political party of the former cricket star Imran Khan on Wednesday accused the director of the C.I.A. and the man it identified as the agency’s Islamabad station chief of murder.

Mr. Khan says the strikes have jeopardized efforts to start peace talks with Taliban insurgents. Last Saturday, Mr. Khan led a large protest rally in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, which his party governs. Since then, Mr. Khan’s supporters have tried to block NATO supplies in the province.

After the latest strike, officials of Mr. Khan’s party renewed their criticism.

The “U.S. has nothing but contempt for Pakistan’s leadership,” said Shireen Mazari, the party’s central information secretary, calling the attack a “direct test of the will of the federal government” led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Friday’s drone strike in Pakistan occurred at a delicate moment for the army, as leadership was passing from the previous army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to his successor, Lt. Gen. Raheel Sharif.

At a ceremony in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, General Kayani expressed confidence in his successor and paid tribute to soldiers who had died in operations against the Taliban in the troubled northwest of the country.

“I kept the interest of the country and armed forces above everything in the decisions that I took in the last six years,” General Kayani said, referring to his tenure as army chief.

In Afghanistan, even an apology by the American commander appeared to do little to assuage official anger.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, called Mr. Karzai late Thursday to express “deep regrets” about the drone strike in Helmand earlier that day, and promised a joint investigation, a coalition official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The coalition official confirmed that two drone attacks had taken place in Helmand Province on Thursday. The first, in Garmsir district, targeted an insurgent commander traveling on a motorcycle, but the missile missed him and apparently hit civilians; one child was reported killed, and two women were severely wounded. The targeted man fled on foot and was killed by a later drone strike.

In the second attack, in Nawa Barak Sai district nearby, a drone strike killed a single insurgent who had been targeted, causing no civilian casualties, the official said.

But Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, disputed the NATO account. He said that in the first instance, American drones fired missiles at the man while he was riding a motorbike but also while he was hiding in a house.

Omar Zwak, the spokesman for the Helmand governor, identified the target of the strike as Mullah Nazar Gul, who he said was a bomb maker. Mr. Zwak said the man had been killed inside a house.

Rod Nordland reported from Kabul, and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan.

@ The New York Times