(Adds prime minister's quotes)

By Olga Dzyubenko

BISHKEK, April 19 (Reuters) - Opponents to Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev threatened to storm the Central Asian state's government headquarters on Thursday but riot police drove them back with teargas and baton charges.

Opposition leaders distanced themselves from the violent protest in the capital Bishkek in which at least five people were injured.

The crowd of 1,500, part of an earlier, larger opposition rally outside the headquarters demanding Bakiyev's resignation, threw bottles at guards and threatened to storm the building.

Riot police pushed the protesters back, beating their shields with their truncheons and firing teargas grenades. Some protesters waved metal bars. The police cleared the square in an hour. The interior minister accused the opposition of failing to control the crowd.

"They have shown that they cannot control the people they brought to the rally," Bolotbek Nogoibayev told reporters at the square. "We are receiving telephone calls that protesters are stopping cars and looting people. This should be stopped."

Prime Minister Almaz Atambayev later told reporters: "Many shop windows have been smashed, but there was no big looting."

Atambayev said three injured demonstrators and two policemen had been taken to hospital.

The clashes raised the spectre of the popular protests -- and ensuing looting -- which toppled former President Askar Akayev and swept Bakiyev to power in 2005. Since then, Kyrgyzstan has teetered on the brink of turmoil.

The opposition accuses Bakiyev of failing to fight graft, letting crime spiral and sabotaging democratic reform.

But opposition leader Isa Abdrakhmanov, said Thursday's violence involved only radicals, not the mainstream opposition.

"We don't carry any responsibility for what is happening in front of the government building," he told news agency RIA.

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