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Last Updated: Monday, 15 May 2006, 12:56 GMT 13:56 UK

Gang violence grips Brazil state

About half the state's jails are involved in rebellions

Attacks are continuing in the Brazilian state of São Paulo where a wave of co-ordinated violence since Friday has left more than 70 people dead.

Overnight, gangs torched buses, targeted banks and continued their attacks on police patrols and stations.

Reports said about 20 people had been killed in the latest fighting.

Authorities say the unrest is being directed from inside jail by a criminal gang after hundreds of its members were sent to maximum security prisons.

The authorities are also struggling to restore order in more than 40 jails across the state where thousands of inmates have rioted.

They have taken about 200 people hostage - some of them said to be visiting relatives.

Unrest has also been reported in some prisons in neighbouring states, including Mato Grosso do Sul and Parana.

Heavily armed gangs held up more than 60 buses during a third night of extreme violence in Sao Paulo, clearing the passengers off and then setting the vehicles alight.

Molotov cocktails were hurled into several bank branches and across Sao Paulo city, police stations again came under attack by gangs wielding machine guns, machetes and home-made bombs.

There were also several fatal shoot-outs.

The violence is an escalation of what many in Sao Paulo are calling a war between the state authorities and the First Command of the Capital (PCC) criminal faction, the BBC's Brazil correspondent Steve Kingstone says.

The attacks and riots began on Friday after 700 jailed PCC members were transferred to higher-security facilities.

Violence was reported in various parts of Greater Sao Paulo, as well as towns along the coast, including Guaruja, Santos and Cubatao, and towns in the interior of the state.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is to call an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the crisis.

Despite the violence, the governor of Sao Paulo state, Claudio Lembo, has said the situation is under control and has rejected an offer of help from the federal government to provide troops and extra policing.

Witnesses: Enio Lucciola, a spokesman for the São Paulo State Public Safety Department, told the Associated Press that authorities had been prepared for a PCC response to the jail transfers but "we never imagined it would be so big or ferocious... It caught us by surprise".

It has emerged that some of those involved in attacks on the police were inmates temporarily released over the weekend for Mothers' Day in Brazil.

Witnesses have been providing reports of some of the violence.

Those who saw the killing of one police officer said two men wearing masks had approached and shot him in the head as he dined with his wife.

Much of the violence is also in response to police violence - how can criminals have any respect for the law if it is not respected by the police?

In another incident, dynamite was placed at the entrance to a police station and the resulting explosion blew off doors and iron railings.

Among the dead are at least 35 police officers and prison guards.

Founded in 1993, the PCC has been involved in drugs and arms trafficking, kidnappings, bank robberies, and prison breaks and rebellions, police say.

In November 2003, the gang attacked more than 50 police stations, killing three police officers and wounding 12.

Those attacks were thought to have been orchestrated by PCC leaders in jail.