North Korea has angrily rejected a multinational investigative team's findings that it was responsible for the deadly sinking of a South Korean naval ship. The investigators says it is beyond doubt a North Korean submarine fired a torpedo and split the ship in half.

North Korea's National Defense Commission issued a statement Thursday calling the international team's findings "sheer fabrication," and a "conspiratorial farce." It warns Pyongyang will meet any retaliation with "tough measures, including an all-out war." The North is also vowing to send a team to South Korea to inspect the evidence for itself.

Just a short while earlier, the international team made public its conclusion that North Korea was involved in the sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean warship. It marked the first time South Korea has explicitly and publicly blamed North Korea for the sinking.

Yoon Duk-yong is the South Korean co-director of the team. He says it is clear the sunk by a torpedo made in North Korea. He says the evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the torpedo was fired by a North Korean submarine. He says there is no other plausible explanation.

Yoon says his team can also confirm a submarine team left a North Korean naval base two or three days before the attack, and returned home two or three days after the ship was sunk.

The team went into deep forensic detail. South Korean military intelligence analyst Hwang Won-dong pointed to what he says are recovered pieces of a torpedo with Korean language markings. He says he knows of no other nation besides North Korea that would mark their torpedoes using the Korean alphabet.

Lee Geun-duk, an explosives analyst, pointed to residue found both on the recovered torpedo parts and on the damaged hull of the Cheonan. He says the team determined the substance found on the torpedo propeller and on the Cheonan are identical.

The Cheonan investigative team brought in analysts from the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Sweden. U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Thomas Eccles, who directed the American investigative team, says none of the nations involved in the probe dispute its conclusions.

"The international team, in close cooperation with the Republic of Korea joint investigative group, worked both in a collaborative way - very closely together - and also employing our separate tools and methods... and in all of those, we found agreement both within the Republic of Korea and all of the international team," said Eccles.

Forty-six South Korean sailors were killed in the sinking of the Cheonan. A South Korean military reprisal is seen as almost impossible, because of the chance that action could escalate into a devastating war. South Korea says it will call for coordinated international action via the United Nations Security Council and the United Nations Commission that monitors an armistice between the two Korea's.

The Thai government has extended an overnight curfew for three days as security in Bangkok remains uncertain after the army broke up an anti-government protest camp. The city has set about cleaning up from the months of protests and nearly a week of street violence.

City workers using bulldozers and trucks Thursday set about clearing away the debris left after the Thai army shut down the red-shirt protest camp in Bangkok's center.

Workers dismantled the protesters' barricades of rubber tires and bamboo poles near the start of Silom Road, the city's financial district.

Pratsarn, a supervisor from the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority, says it will take at least two days to clear the area, in part because the army must make it safe. He says the army gave the clearance for the cleanup crews after checking for unexploded materials.

Many of the red-shirt leaders had surrendered by Thursday, and urged their supporters to go home, but some protesters refused and resisted efforts to capture them.

The army reported small pockets of fighting in Bangkok Thursday, as it hunted down resisters. But overall, the city was calm, a day after the army used armoured personnel carriers to push into the protest camp at Rajaprasong, an upscale shopping and residential district.

At least nine people died during the operation, bringing the death toll to more than 70 since the protests began in mid-March.

Satish Sehgal is a Bangkok publisher who lives near the Bon Kai area, which saw intense fighting Wednesday. He says security in Bon Kai remains uncertain, so roads have not re-opened, because some red shirts remain active in the area.

"I believe [authorities] are only waiting to clear the area in Bon Kai because apparently some activists and some terrorists are still hidden in different buildings around that area," he said. "The army is still looking for weapons and explosives down Rajadamri Road. But other than that it is only matter of time that things get back to normal."

The government has extended the overnight curfew it imposed Wednesday on Bangkok and more than 20 other provinces for three more nights.

The red shirts, many of whom support former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, had demanded that the government resign. They said they were denied their votes when Mr. Thaksin as ousted in a coup in 2006 and subsequent, elected, pro-Thaksin governments were removed by court rulings.

Mr. Thaksin, who lives overseas to avoid a prison sentence for corruption, warned the army crackdown may trigger violence elsewhere in the country. He has called for outside mediation to resolve the crisis, which the government rejects.

The government says Mr. Thaksin helped orchestrate the protests, a charge he denies.

Thai authorities say they have restored order in most of Bangkok a day after launching a deadly operation to clear thousands of opposition Red Shirt activists from a protest site in the capital. Security forces fired warning shots Thursday in parts of the capital as they searched for militants who resisted Wednesday's government raid on the Red Shirts' encampment.

Officials say the number of people killed in the raid has risen to 15 with another 100 people wounded. The dead include six people whose bodies were recovered from a Buddhist temple within the protest zone.

Militants responded to the raid by setting fire to at least 35 Bangkok buildings, leaving many in ruins, including the Center World mall, one of the region's biggest. Some buildings were still smoldering Thursday as firefighters tried to put out the flames.

City workers also started to clean up the area the Red Shirts had occupied in Bangkok's commercial hub for more than two months. The protesters had demanded early elections to replace a government they deemed illegitimate and elitist. Most of the protesters are rural poor and working class activists who support deposed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn expressed understanding Thursday for the frustrations of the Red Shirts. But he also said arson attacks and looting carried out by some protesters were criminal acts that amount to organized terrorism.

Three Red Shirt leaders turned themselves in to police Thursday, raising the number in police custody to eight. One of the three who surrendered, Veera Musikapong, appealed for calm and told supporters that democracy can not be built on revenge and anger.

Thai officials said they were transferring the Red Shirt leaders to a military camp south of Bangkok for interrogation. Authorities also extended a nighttime curfew in Bangkok and 23 provinces to Saturday morning. Thailand's unrest spread this week to the northeastern cities of Udon Thani and Khon Kaen, where militants carried out arson attacks on government buildings.

Violence in Bangkok has killed at least 82 people and wounded 1,800 others since the Red Shirts began their demonstrations in March.