Myanmar junta mounts major crackdown on NLD after Aung San Suu Kyi arrest.

(From Agence France Presse)

Myanmar's ruling junta launched a crackdown on the democratic opposition, closing all major branch offices and putting its leadership under house arrest after detaining party figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Nobel peace laureate was placed under "protective custody" in northern Myanmar along with 18 members of her entourage after clashes between her supporters and a pro-junta mob Friday left four dead and 50 injured, the government said.

A junta source said the seven members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) governing committee remaining in Yangon had been put under house arrest. The eighth, party vice-chairman Tin Oo, was in custody with Aung San Suu Kyi.

"All the leadership of the NLD have been placed under house arrest since yesterday," the source told AFP. "All the NLD headquarters in major towns have been sealed," he said, adding that included seven or eight offices.

Aung San Suu Kyi's whereabouts remained unknown and her party was barred from contacting her, but observers in Yangon said she may be on her way back to the capital.

NLD sources said the doors of party offices were slammed shut and the NLD's distinctive red flags emblazoned with fighting peacocks had been torn down. Its headquarters in the capital was sealed on Saturday.