Bangkok - Two men were killed in the Thai capital after anti-government protestors clashed with residents near their main rally site on Monday night, said reporters at the scene. As the city braced for a final army move against protestors who closed down much of the city over the weekend anti-government demonstrators - so-called Red Shirts - fired shots at people not far from the main rally site.

Two men, aged 54 and 19, were killed and a dozen injured said a government spokesman on television and a member of a medical foundation in local press reports.

Eyewitnesses said people who live around a food market objected to protestors positioning a burning bus near their homes - and so moved it. Gunmen later arrived to shoot at residents, some of whom fired back.

Gunfire was also heard around Government House where the protestors have set up their main rally. A leader of the Red Shirts, Jakrapob Penkair said the authorities are running a dirty tricks campaign to discredit the movement using agent provocateurs and thugs.

There are reports of clashes elsewhere in Bangkok and in the provinces following Monday's expected army crackdown against an anti- government movement whose members invaded a 16-nation Asian regional summit in the nearby resort of Pattaya on Saturday. The summit was cancelled greatly damaging Thailand's image.

Thousands of battle-ready troops spread out across the city Monday to clear away barricades, firing bullets into the air and using tear gas to take control of the many key road junctions that had been seized after the Red Shirt success in cancelling the summit.

By nightfall, the demonstrators had mostly withdrawn to the area around Government House where they have been rallying for three weeks.

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the protest leader in self-exile, demanded in a CNN interview the army stop using unreasonable force against unarmed protestors - and he accused the government of covering up the "many" deaths in the crackdown.

"They even take the dead bodies up on the truck and take them away," Thaksin said.

Scores of people, including soldiers, were injured earlier when troops swept down streets, firing in the air and shooting directly at buses driven at them by protestors.

Protest leader Nattawut Saikua called for the demonstrators to regroup to their base in front of Government House by evening.

As the sun set on Monday, a pall of smoke hung over the Government House area of the city from tires and buses set alight by protestors. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has said that no-one has been killed by the military, although.(dpa)