NEWS - Armed group storm Myanmar e

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Subject: NEWS -  Armed group storm Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, shots fired

   Armed group storm Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, shots fired

   ATTENTION - ADDS details, quotes ///

   BANGKOK, Oct 1 (AFP) - A group of 12 armed men stormed the Myanmar
embassy
in downtown Bangkok Friday, taking the 20 staff hostage, police said.
   Major General Jongrak Chutanond, deputy metropolitan police commander
told
AFP from the scene that attack was launched just before midday (0500
GMT).
   Police said shots had been heard inside the building, but that all
the
hostages were believed to be safe.
   General Thanajaro, security advisor to the prime minister, said the
hostage
takers had not yet made any demands, but they were believed to be exiled
Myanmar activists.
   "The government doesn't know what the hostage takers demands are and
the
Burmese students won't let anyone inside the embassy compound," he told
reporters.
   Dozens of armed police wearing flack jackets cordoned off the section
of
Sathorn Road surrounding the embassy and sniffer dogs were being used to
search the area, an AFP reporter on the scene said.
   Witnesses said at least 10 shots had been heard from inside the
compound
and the attackers had removed the Myanmar flag, replacing it with the
red
and
gold fighting peakcock banner of the student pro-democracy movement.
   Police said all the shots so far had been fired by the hostage
takers.
   A spokesman for Myanmar's military government said in a statement
that
ambassador Hla Muang was safe and had not been in the embassy compound
when
it
was stormed.
   "The Myanmar ambassador was not in the embassy at the time of the
incident," the statement received here said.
   "He is working together with the Thai authorities to secure the
release
of
the hostages."
   Police at the scene earlier said Hla Muang was amongst the hostages.
They
said the group of 12 men was armed with AK-47 assault rifles and
grenades.
   According to witnesses, two men at the scene, both believed to be
Burmese,
had so far been detained for questioning.
   A number of exiled Myanmar activist groups use Thailand as the base
for
their efforts to topple Yangon junta, making regular calls for democracy
and
the convening of a parliament elected in 1990 polls.
   The polls were won in a landslide by the National League for
Democracy
led
by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, but the military have refused
to
hand over power.
   A spokesman for the Thailand-based All Burma Students' Democratic
Front
(ABSDF) on Friday denied any involvement in the embassy storming.
   "The ABSDF is not involved in violence, and we call on all sides to
resolve
this in a peaceful way," spokesman Naing Aung told AFP.
   "We use Thailand only as a logistics base for our movement."
   bur/de/agr/jkb