By Adrees Latif
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai troops fired rubber bullets at charging anti-government protesters who fought back by hurling stones in a clash on a highway in Bangkok's suburbs on Wednesday that wounded at least five people.
Soldiers also fired into the air with automatic weapons and shotguns in an attempt to stop a convoy of up to 2,000 "red shirt" protesters on pickup trucks and on motorcycles who had left central Bangkok in defiance of a state of emergency .
About 100 protesters had moved ahead of the main convoy, charging the troops and riot police, who used batons and shields to push them back. Some protesters fought back by hurling stones and shooting metal balls from sling-shots, witnesses said.
The fighting stopped as a powerful tropical rainstorm moved over the traffic-choked area about 40 km (25 miles) from central Bangkok on Vipawadee-Rangsit road.
An official at Bhumibol Airforce Hospital in northern Bangkok said at least five people, including one soldier, had been admitted there. The nature of their injuries was not immediately clear.
The main convey with hundreds of protesters was about 8 km (five miles) behind the scene of the clash, the latest violence in a seven-week crisis that has killed 26 people, wounded more than 800, paralysed Bangkok and started to squeeze Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy.
The protesters, honking horns and singing on the back of their pick-up trucks and motorcycles, left their fortified base near the business district on Wednesday morning, heading for a market 50 km (30 miles) away.
Riot police and troops did not try to stop them initially and thousands remained at their encampment in a ritzy shopping district in central Bangkok they have occupied since April 3.
The mostly rural and urban poor red shirts inflicted traffic chaos in Bangkok on Tuesday by stacking tyres on the elevated platform of a commuter train station by their protest site, worried troops would use Bangkok's Skytrain to attack them.
The red shirts set out gas cooking canisters along their three-metre (10 ft) high barricade on the edge of the Silom business district overnight, a Reuters reporter said. The medieval-like barriers have been doused with fuel so they can be turned into a wall of fire should security forces try an assault.
Thailand's stock index was down 0.9 percent at 0830 GMT on Wednesday as the country's political crisis outweighed good quarterly results. The index has lost 3.30 pct so far in April, when the protests turned violent, versus a 1.8 rise in Asian markets outside of Japan.
TROOP MOVEMENTS
Troop movements were reported in central areas of Bangkok late on Tuesday and army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said some were "training" for an eventual dispersal of the protesters.
Hopes for a negotiated end to the crisis were dashed at the weekend when Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva rejected a proposal by the protesters for an election in three months.
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thuangsuban said the security forces would stop protesters moving around in defiance of a state of emergency. "It is clear the protesters are not gathering peacefully. We will not be lenient with these people any more."
Many in the army, which led a failed operation against a red-shirt rally on April 10 when 25 people were killed and 800 wounded, do not want to be dragged into battle with civilians.
Adding to the volatile mix, groups opposed to the red shirts -- and the loss to business and livelihoods the protests have caused in Bangkok -- have held rallies in the capital and want to see the red shirt encampment broken up.
The red shirts back ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a 2006 coup, and say Abhisit came to power illegitimately with tacit military backing.
Thaksin, a former telecoms tycoon revered by the poor and reviled by Bangkok's elite, was convicted in absentia on corruption-related charges and lives abroad to avoid jail.
Analysts say the deadlock and a possible deterioration in law and order could continue for weeks, damaging the economy, with consumer confidence flagging and the tourist industry suffering, especially in the capital.
If the protests drag on for three months, it could shave 0.64 percentage point off Thailand's 2010 economic growth forecast of 4.5 percent, the government has said.
(Additional reporting by Chalathip Thirasoonthrakul and Ambika Ahuja; Writing by Jason Szep. Editing by Bill Tarrant)
