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.

A dissident Thai General has been shot and seriously wounded, along with several other people at the site of an anti-government protest in Bangkok. VOA's Daniel Schearf witnessed the shooting which followed a government threat to seal off the protest area to force weeks-long demonstration to end.

Major General Khattiya Sawasdipol was shot in the head while talking to a New York Times newspaper reporter and just as Schearf approached him to ask a question. Seconds later, protest security guards yelled at journalists and on-lookers to stay back as they tried to help the general - also known as Seh Daeng - into a van and to the hospital. After he was driven away, explosions rang out and the protesters, called the Red Shirts, scattered.

One protester, who was trying to get people to leave the area, says soldiers fired a grenade and used live ammunition. The protester said, "A soldier, Thai soldier, he shoot M16 and M79 to Thai people, Red Shirts." But his claims could not be verified in the ensuring chaos.

Thai authorities have accused protesters of hiding guns and grenades. Adding to the confusion immediately following the shooting, demonstrators began lighting fireworks. Some protesters used bamboo poles to break billboard street lights, apparently concerned that snipers would see them.

Earlier in the day, authorities had said they would isolate the protest area using armored vehicles and cut phone connections, water and electricity to pressure the protest to end. A spokesman said the army would also deploy snipers to look for what he called armed "terrorists."

General Seh Daeng was one of the more militant supporters of the anti-government protest. Some accused him of trying to form a paramilitary force among the protesters. Because of his support of the protest, he was suspended from the army and had a warrant out for his arrest.

Authorities have issued arrest warrants for many of the protest leaders who have been labeled "terrorists," after April clashes with security forces that killed more than 20 people.

The protesters have been occupying a central commercial area of Bangkok for two months, demanding that the government, which they say is illegitimate, step down and allow elections.

The government withdrew an offer for early elections in November after protest leaders demanded that officials also face charges for the deaths of protesters.