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Thai authorities said on Sunday that they had abandoned a plan to impose curfew in parts of Bangkok where about 25 people have been killed in four days of clashes, The Associated Press reported.

Lt. Gen. Aksara Kerdphol, the army’s assistant chief of staff, told reporters that the government no longer saw a need to enforce a curfew.

The army had said earlier that a curfew would be imposed later in the day. Aksara did not explain the reversal.

A curfew would have allowed authorities to prevent civilians from entering or leaving certain areas. A violation could result in a maximum penalty of two years in prison.

Thousands of Red Shirt protesters, meanwhile, refused to leave Bangkok’s streets despite chaotic urban warfare, with both sides calling for reinforcements.

Reuters put the death toll in the past three days at 24, while The Associated Press said 25 people had died. There was no explanation for the different numbers.

A towering column of black smoke rose over the city Sunday as protesters facing off with troops set fire to tires serving as a barricade. Elsewhere, they doused a police traffic post with gasoline and torched it. The streets were quiet but tense on Sunday a day after soldiers fired live rounds at demonstrators who fought back with petrol bombs, rocks and crude homemade rockets in two major areas of the city, as the army tried to isolate a sprawling encampment in central Bangkok occupied by the protesters for six weeks.

“We will not retreat,” Abhisit said in a televised statement late on Saturday. “We cannot allow the country to be in a condition in which people can establish an armed group to topple the government that they are not happy with.”

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