Defiant Thai opposition protesters have stormed the army headquarters and besieged Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's party offices, intensifying their fight to bring down her government.
Boisterous demonstrators have targeted key government buildings in Bangkok in the biggest street protests since mass rallies in 2010 degenerated into the kingdom's worst civil strife in decades.
The protesters - a mix of royalists, southerners and the urban middle class sometimes numbering in their tens of thousands - are united by their loathing of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
The controversial former telecoms tycoon was ousted in a coup in 2006 and lives in self-imposed exile, but he is widely believed to be the real power behind the embattled government of his younger sister Yingluck.
Protesters are demanding the end of the "Thaksin regime" and want to replace the government with an unelected "people's council".
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"The basic desire of the protesters and the protest leaders is to create chaos and destruction, presumably hoping that the military will have to intervene and take power from the government," said Thailand expert Andrew Walker, a professor at Australian National University.
In the latest provocative move targeting a symbol of state power, demonstrators forced open the gates of the army headquarters in Bangkok, calling on the military to support their fight to bring down the government.
Flag-waving demonstrators massed on the lawn inside the army compound in Bangkok's historic district for several hours before leaving voluntarily.
"We want to know whether the army will stand by the people not a dictator," said a protest leader, Amorn Amornrattananont.
In a statement released hours later, army chief Prayuth Chan-O-Cha urged protesters to respect "the democratic process under the law".
