Jakarta – Troops and police fought pitched battles in the streets of Jakarta Thursday, after the security forces tried to block a march by some 2,000 students calling for Indonesian President B.J. Habibie to step down.

Several students and some photographers were seen injured as the troops waded into the students with batons, and the two sides traded rocks in a running series of battles.

The troops, most of them armed with batons and plastic riot shields, had formed a barrier across a road leading to a central city monument marking Indonesia's independence proclamation.

When they tried to stop the marchers reaching the monument, the students responded with a hail of stones, which the troops threw back.

Police were also arresting passers-by outside the campus of the ABA ABI foreign and Indonesian language academy where hundreds of the students fled to escape the clashes. Some troops entered the campus and were arresting students there.

Five students were arrested in the first clash, and police sirens wailed signalling the arrival of buses to detain more of the students.

Shouting "Revolution Now," the students had marched some three kilometers en masse from the Salemba campus of the University of Indonesia calling for a transitional government until elections can be held.

Student spokesmen denied the march had been timed to coincide with the arrival of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, scheduled to land in Jakarta later in the evening. "The march was planned long before," said one leader.