N'DJAMENA Jubilant crowds thronged the streets of N'djamena on Friday to welcome Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and other African Muslim leaders to the Chadian capital. Thousands of people, some holding portraits of Gaddafi, lined the streets from the airport to a race course where the Libyan leader was due to lead Friday prayers. His three-day visit for a regional mini-summit and special Muslim prayer session has raised concern among Christian church groups and sparked a violent student protest on Tuesday. Hundreds of carpets had been laid out at the track, decked with green Islamic flags ahead of the ceremony, which local church groups say compromises Chad's secular status.

Official motorcades plied the route from the airport with delegations who were greeted by ululating women and turbaned men in African robes as well as guards of honour, military bands and a banner saying We welcome you to Chad, African brothers. Youths careered along the street in pickup trucks waving banners hailing the leader of the Libyan revolution. In the capital's main Mobutu avenue, rifle-toting Libyan commandos, some of them women, faced enthusiastic crowds who were held back by Chadian soldiers swatting at them with thongs.

Tasselled horses pranced to the beat of drums as the residents of N'djamena revelled in the streets. Gaddafi arrived in Chad on Thursday by land bearing gifts ranging from cash, vehicles and generators to fuel and vaccines. Libya is under a UN air embargo although Gaddafi has broken this in the past when visiting neighbouring Niger and Nigeria for similar Muslim prayer sessions.

(Reuter)