The Associated Press

By JAY REEVES
The Associated Press

Two Birmingham college students have been arrested and a third is being sought in the string of church arsons that destroyed or damaged nine rural churches in Alabama last month, federal law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details are under court seal and the formal announcement is to be made later, said the two are being charged with conspiracy and individual counts in the arsons at five Bibb County churches and four in west Alabama.

Arson investigators scheduled an afternoon news conference at the Tuscaloosa airport to discuss the arrests.

Federal law officers said the two arrested were students at Birmingham-Southern College, and the third person being sought was described as a student at another Birmingham school.

The two in custody were brought to the federal courthouse in Birmingham for their initial appearance before a federal magistrate.

All nine churches are Baptist and mostly located in isolated areas. The five in Bibb County, south of Birmingham, burned early Feb. 3. The four in west Alabama were found ablaze early Feb. 7.

A 10th rural Baptist church fire, in Lamar County, has been ruled arson but is not believed to be connected to the others. It was discovered on Feb. 11.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives made the Alabama church arson case its top priority as scores of agents joined state and local law officers in the probe. The FBI had said earlier it was looking for two men, based partly on witness accounts.

Investigators have said they don't know a motive, but there is no racial pattern. Five of the churches had white congregations and five black. While all were Baptist, that is the dominant faith in the region and agents were uncertain if that particular faith was a factor.

Five of the churches were destroyed and four were damaged, including one in which congregants, alerted during the night that churches were afire, arrived just as the apparent arsonists were leaving. That fire, quickly put out, had been set in the sanctuary near the altar — a pattern in the other church arsons in Bibb County and west Alabama.