Opposition leader arrested by police

? Police stormed the main opposition party headquarters Wednesday and arrested its leader shortly before President Robert Mugabe left for an emergency meeting in Tanzania of southern African leaders about the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Morgan Tsvangirai and other Mugabe opponents were taken into custody hours before the opposition leader planned to talk to reporters about a wave of political violence that left him briefly hospitalized.

Police sealed off approaches to the Movement for Democratic Change headquarters and fired tear gas to drive away onlookers before taking Tsvangirai and the others away in a bus, said Eliphas Mukonoweshuro, an aide to Tsvangirai.

“We don’t know their whereabouts. We don’t know if they have been charged,” he said.

Mugabe is under growing pressure to step down as leader of the country he has ruled since independence in 1980. Tensions are said to be rising in his party over his succession, and the opposition blames him for the country’s corruption and shortages of food, hard currency and gasoline.

But the 83-year-old leader has denied his rule is nearing an end and has vowed to crush opposition to him and his government.