London - More than 20 people were hurt and 17 arrested during a race riot that turned into an ugly standoff with hundreds of police in north-west England overnight, British police said on Sunday.
Police fought running battles with up to 500 stone and petrol bomb-throwing youths in the streets of Oldham, near Manchester after Saturday night clashes between rival white and Asian groups escalated into a riot in which cars were set on fire, pubs firebombed and gunshots reported.
"They threw quite a lot of petrol bombs," Manchester police Superintendent Eric Hewitt told reporters as dawn broke over the rubble-strewn streets and the crowd dispersed. "I am very angry. We could have had someone killed".
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He said police were at a loss to explain the sudden eruption of violence, although he accepted that racial tensions had been building for some time.
"We have seen tensions building here for many months, but not on the scale we saw last night. No one can provide an explanation for this at the moment. We will be looking to rebuild confidence in the community."
Hewitt praised his officers for their bravery and said many more arrests were expected in coming days.
He rejected suggestions that tensions in the town had turned some places into no-go areas for his officers, but said police would maintain a high presence throughout the bank holiday weekend.
Twenty police officers and several civilians suffered minor injuries and a number of police cars were very badly damaged.
"There are fires burning in the streets, there is rubble all over the road and the air's full of smoke," a police spokesperson said earlier after hundreds of riot police from around Greater Manchester were drafted in to quell the fighting.
A Reuters photographer was attacked and his equipment smashed during the height of the rioting, which came just 10 days before a general election that has featured rising crime as a prominent theme.
An eyewitness at the scene described the standoff between the rioters and the police at the edge of the Glodwick estate, which is home to the town's main Asian community and has been a hotbed of racial tension recently.
"Every couple of minutes they are throwing bricks, rubble and petrol bombs at the police who are about 150 yards away," he said. "Police have been running at them and trying to drive them back. It looks like a road from the troubles in Jerusalem."
The police spokesperson said the fighting may have been touched off by a gang of white youths who had thrown bricks at a house belonging to an Asian family earlier on Saturday. The youths have been arrested.
She also said there had been stone-throwing in the town between some right-wing white supporters and Asian youths, although this was not thought to have been linked.
The landlord of one pub attacked on Saturday night said parts of the town had been turned into no-go areas for whites. He said police had lost control of the town during the violence.
"At about 11.30pm they put the windows through, and then threw in a firebomb," said John Hamley, of the Ordnance Arms pub.
Oldham hit the headlines in Britain earlier this year when national newspapers printed pictures of the battered face of a 76-year-old white man who said he had been attacked by a gang of Asian youths. A 15-year-old Asian boy was later charged with racially-motivated assault.
The simmering racial tensions in Oldham have become so explosive that earlier this month Home secretary Jack Straw issued an order outlawing any political marches.
On May 5, police arrested 16 people after the ultra-right wing National Front party went ahead with a march in defiance of the Home Office ban. - Reuters
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