The splinter faction of the opposition indicated Friday it would support Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a runoff.

“Whatever formation is there to remove Mugabe, we are there to support it,” Abednico Bhebhe, spokesman for the faction headed by Arthur Mutambara, told The Associated Press.

On Thursday, MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti said hotel rooms used as offices by the opposition at a Harare hotel were ransacked by intruders he believed were either police or agents of the feared Central Intelligence Organization.

“Mugabe has started a crackdown,” Biti told The Associated Press. “It is quite clear he has unleashed a war.”

Also Thursday, heavily armed riot police surrounded and entered a Harare hotel housing foreign correspondents and took five away, lawyers said.

Zimbabwe lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said two of the journalists were jailed and would be charged Friday with practicing journalism without licenses. She said the other three were released.

Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, said Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent Barry Bearak was among the reporters initially detained. The identities of the other reporters had not been determined. The U.S.-based National Democratic Institute said Thursday that one of its staff members was detained by Zimbabwean authorities at Harare’s airport. President Bush’s national security spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said Friday that White House officials were “troubled by reports we are hearing on the ground in Zimbabwe.”