But the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says accusations its supporters have launched a violent campaign against President Robert Mugabe's 27-year rule are designed to justify a brutal crackdown ahead of general elections next year.

On Sunday, police spokesman Andrew Phiri told Zimbabwe state media they had detained MDC activists "suspected of being involved in a criminal bombing campaign" and they would be taken to court in the coming days.

Defence lawyer Alec Muchadehama said police had on Sunday screened and freed most of the those were arrested on Saturday.

"They have remained with 41 people in custody, and at the moment we don't know when they are going to take them to court or the specific charges," he told reporters.

Mugabe's ZANU-PF administration has routinely deployed police riot squads to crush anti-government rallies.

An MDC member of parliament and 31 other party activists were detained in March and are awaiting trial on charges of terrorism, banditry and sabotage.

"We are hunting for more suspects following leads supplied by those who have already been arrested," Phiri said.

But Chamisa said the arrests on Saturday were part of a drive to cripple the MDC ahead of parliamentary, presidential and local council elections due by March 2008.

"Our position remains that this is a campaign to destroy us before the elections, and that the so-called MDC violence is being stage-managed by the government to justify this crackdown," he told Reuters.

The Saturday arrests came a day after Zimbabwe extended a ban on political protests in Harare which the country's embattled opposition has likened to "a state of emergency".

Veteran Zimbabwean leader Mugabe has come under heavy criticism for the new clampdown on the opposition, which he accuses of trying to organise "terrorist" government protests he says are bankrolled by some Western countries.

But Mugabe remains defiant, blaming Zimbabwe's economic crisis on sabotage by his opponents and threatening to deal harshly with any attempt to overthrow him unconstitutionally.

The 83-year-old Mugabe accuses the MDC of being stooges of Zimbabwe's former colonial power Britain in an effort to oust his government as punishment for seizing and redistributing white-owned commercial farms to landless blacks.

But critics say his economic policies have sent the once-prosperous nation into a crisis marked by inflation of more than 3 700%and unemployment of more than 80%.