Fri Sep 28, 3:20 PM ET

LONDON - An Internet group backing the monk-led protests in Myanmar has attracted more than 100,000 members in less than 10 days as people around the world try to harness the power of the Web to support the resistance movement.

The Internet has become a battleground in the wave of protests that erupted a month ago against 45 years of repressive military rule in Myanmar. It has played a crucial role in coaxing information out of the reclusive Southeast Asian nation, where few foreign journalists are permitted to operate and media freedom is severely restricted.

For days, the world has been watching television and still images transmitted over the Internet, and many journalism and dissident Web sites and blogs are packed with images documenting the military crackdown on the pro-democracy protests. The pictures have drawn global condemnation of the ruling junta.

But on Friday, military rulers cut off the country's two Internet service providers in a bid to stop the accounts and images from reaching the outside world. They also cut some phone landlines and intensified confiscation of cell phones.

The tight media restrictions mean "citizen journalist" accounts have been vital for media tracking the events. Reporters have relied on social networking sites such as Facebook and bloggers such as London-based Burmese Ko Htike for firsthand accounts and images.

By Friday, more than 110,000 people had joined the "Support the Monks' Protest in Burma" group, set up on Facebook nine days ago. The group has become a repository of eyewitness accounts, photos and video footage of the protests, and also provides details of demonstrations worldwide.

British organizer Johnny Chatterton said that until Internet links to Myanmar were cut, the group had been receiving images, video and reports from sources with contacts in Myanmar. He said much of it — including the report of a monk killed by soldiers — had turned out to be accurate.

"I'm passing on the details to my contacts at the papers and the BBC," said Chatterton, 23.

He said the group's goal was "to show the world's eyes are on Burma" and to coordinate protests, including a global day of action planned for Oct. 6.

On Friday, the Facebook group posted an estimate from sources inside Myanmar that 200 people had been killed in the crackdown in the past several days. The government says 10 people have died, although Western officials and diplomats say the toll is likely much higher.

The junta shut down Internet service providers BaganNet and Myanmar Post and Telecom on Friday, although big companies and embassies hooked up to the Web by satellite remained online.

"The government understood that they were losing the communications battle," said Vincent Brossel, who heads the Asia desk at media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders. He said the flow of words and images from inside Myanmar, also known as Burma, had slowed to a trickle.

"Now (Myanmar authorities) are trying to do something like they did in 1988, when the information came out after the massacres."

A similar uprising in 1988 was crushed in a bloodbath, with more than 3,000 people killed, but few journalists were on hand to witness it.

Brossel welcomed the role of sites such as Facebook, which has grown rapidly since it was founded 3 1/2 years ago. But he cautioned that Western Internet companies have cooperated with governments to restrict the flow of information on the Net in the past.

Suki Dusanj of Burma Campaign U.K. said new-media technologies are playing an important role in the showdown.

"The world is watching now," she said. "The culture of mobile phones allows us easy access within the country to what is going on and the 'Support the Monks' group on Facebook means we can reach out to people easier."