An anti-government protester composes himself after witnessing a man being shot on Saturday in Bangkok, Thailand. Thai troops clashed with protesters for a third day in Bangkok on Saturday as streets in the center of the Asian metropolis became battlegrounds and authorities struggled to contain demonstrators demanding the prime minister’s resignation.

Bangkok ? Thailand’s leader warned violence was on the rise after three days of rolling street battles in the heart of Bangkok and hinted today that a curfew may be imposed on the sprawling metropolis of more than 10 million people.

Schools were also ordered shut Monday after the violence that has killed 25 people since a military operation began Thursday to seal off a 1-square-mile protest camp occupied for weeks by anti-government demonstrators demanding early elections.

Speaking on his weekly television program, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva insisted that the military operation to quell protests was the answer in ending the country’s two-month-long crisis.

“Overall, I insist the best way to prevent losses is to stop the protest. The protest creates conditions for violence to occur. We do realize at the moment that the role of armed groups is increasing each day,” he said.

He said a meeting was taking place to discuss a possible curfew. Abhisit said he had asked the education minister to postpone the beginning of a new school semester, due to begin Monday, for a week.

The spiraling violence has raised concerns of sustained, widespread chaos in Thailand — a key U.S. ally and Southeast Asia’s most popular tourist destination that promotes its easygoing culture as the “Land of Smiles.”

On Saturday, soldiers blocked major roads and pinned up notices of a “Live Firing Zone” in one area of Bangkok.

The protesters launched a steady stream of rudimentary missiles at troops who fired back with live ammunition in several areas around a key commercial district of Bangkok.

Army snipers were perched with high-powered rifles atop tall buildings, viewing the action below through telescopic sights. Thick black smoke billowed from tires set ablaze by demonstrators as gunfire rang out.

Protesters dragged away the bodies of three people from sidewalks — shot by army snipers, they claimed.

The protesters have occupied a tire-and-bamboo-spike barricaded, 1-square-mile zone in one of the capital’s ritziest areas, Rajprasong, for about two months to push their demands for Abhisit to resign immediately, dissolve Parliament and call new elections.

The violence ignited after the army started forming a cordon around the protesters’ encampment and a sniper shot and gravely wounded a rogue general reputed to be the Red Shirts’ military adviser.

At least 54 people have been killed and more than 1,600 wounded since the protests began mid-March, according to the government. The dead include 25 killed since Thursday.

The clashes are the most prolonged and deadliest bout of political violence that Thailand has faced in decades despite having a history of coups — 18 since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.

The crisis had appeared to be near a resolution last week when Abhisit offered to have elections in November, a year early. But the hopes were dashed after Red Shirt leaders made more demands.

The political uncertainty has spooked foreign investors and damaged the vital tourism industry, which accounts for 6 percent of the economy, Southeast Asia’s second largest.

The Red Shirts, drawn mostly from the rural and urban poor, say Abhisit’s coalition government came to power through manipulation of the courts and the backing of the powerful military, and that it symbolizes a national elite indifferent to the poor.

The fighting is taking place in the no man’s land between the encampment and the army cordon, a normally bustling area with hotels, businesses, embassies, shopping malls and apartments. Most of them are now shut and public transport is off the roads.