Troops on streets in Fiji's "coup by strangulation"

SUVA (Reuters) - Heavily-armed soldiers remained on Fiji's streets on Tuesday and government cars were being seized, radio reports said, as the military increased pressure on the government amid fears of a fourth coup in 20 years.

Soldiers set up roadblocks throughout the capital Suva on Monday as well as other towns including Nadi, the international tourism hub in the west of the main island of Viti Levu.

Military commander Frank Bainimarama has repeatedly threatened Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's government, which won a second five-year term in May, in what The Fiji Times newspaper described on Tuesday as a "coup by strangulation."

Soldiers also raided key police installations and removed the weapons of the police's only armed unit on Monday and disarmed the bodyguards of Qarase and other government ministers.

Radio reports early on Tuesday said the military had begun seizing the official cars of government ministers not long before an emergency cabinet meeting called by Qarase to discuss the crisis was due to begin.