Malawi leader warns rioters

Muluzi ordered troops to arrest suspects

The President of Malawi, Bakili Muluzi, has told security forces to arrest anyone suspected of involvement in religious violence, after a second day of rioting in the southern African country.

Troops were deployed after Muslim mobs went on the rampage in the district of Mangochi, about 180 kilometres (120 miles) north-east of the capital, Blantyre.

Protesters took to the streets in anger over the deportation of five suspected members of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

Malawian officials say the five suspects - two Turks, a Kenyan, a Saudi Arabian and a Sudanese - were arrested in a joint operation with the American CIA last weekend and then flown out of Malawi.

An earlier court ruling had forbidden their deportation.

On Saturday, Muslim gangs targeted Mangochi's Christian community, vandalising churches and attacking a priest, according to witnesses.

An uneasy calm is reported to have returned to Mangochi on Saturday night, with tensions running high before Christian church services on Sunday.

Churches targeted

Speaking at a consecration ceremony for a Roman Catholic bishop, President Muluzi said he would not tolerate religious violence.

"You know that I am a Muslim, I don't hide that, but I am a peaceful Muslim.

"I will not allow anyone [to] start violence in the name of religion," he said.

Witnesses said six churches had been vandalised and a priest dragged form his car before it was overturned and set on fire, Reuters news agency reported.

"Our Muslim brothers were marching against the extradition of... al-Qaeda suspects. We had nothing against their march. But what has amazed us is that they are attacking our churches," Father Mathews Likambale of the Mangochi Parish told the news agency.

The violence in Mangochi followed riots in Blantyre on Friday.

Malawi's Muslims, who form a minority in the country, accused the government of complicity with the United States by secretly handing the al-Qaeda suspects to CIA agents.

The Americans reportedly spirited them away on a chartered Air Malawi flight on Monday night to an American army camp in Botswana.

American officials have not yet commented on the reports.