Police and local authorities conducted evening raids across Asmara and, in the most public incident, sealed off a block in the centre of town on Friday night and raided a night school.

Those who were not mothers, pregnant, or veterans of Eritrea's war of independence from Ethiopia were loaded onto buses and taken to police stations for questioning.

A Reuters correspondent heard students screaming as three buses pulled away, watched by surprised drinkers at an outdoor bar.

National service in the Horn of Africa country has taken on added significance since the start of a border war with neighbour Ethiopia 11 months ago.

Tens of thousands have been reported killed in the border conflict. Eritrea has boosted its standing army with veterans of the earlier war of independence and those who have completed national service.

Some of those young men and women detained over the weekend were reportedly released after their papers had been checked.

The night school that was raided is often attended by high school drop-outs, some of whom may have missed the draft because youths are usually called up when they complete high school.

Every Eritrean between 18 and 40 is obliged by law to do 18 months of national service.

Some Asmara residents criticised the weekend round-up.

``The police have good reason, people always think they can hide in Asmara,'' said one city resident. ``But this action is not the way to solve the problem. It was a mistake.''

Zemeret Yohannes, head of cultural affairs at the ruling party, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice, said only a few people had dodged the draft but defended the police tactics in trying to catch up with them.

``When our young people are defending the country... it is morally and socially unacceptable to hide from the duty of citizenship,'' he said.

The level of patriotic fervour for Eritrea's war remains very high, but a small number of young people attempt to avoid both national service and duty at the front line.

So far, 160,000 Eritreans have been sent for national service in eight rounds since it was established in 1994. The ninth round of military training started two weeks ago.

The two groups of animals had been locked in almost daily combat as they struggled for supremacy but the lions finally prevailed, the state news agency reported Monday.

``The king of the jungle cut down 35 hyenas and drove off the rest. Six lions were also killed in the fight which was considered the rarest and most notorious in recent memory,'' the agency said.

Ethiopian television footage of the fighting, aired Sunday, showed the desert sand billowing as lions and hyenas tore at each other in furious battle under a cloudless sky.

One lion was seen wrestling with six hyenas as other lions stood watching the fight and waiting their turn. Police told the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) that the rocky Gobele desert area in southeastern Ethiopia was now under the lions' firm control.

The area is suffering a drought but officials ruled that out as a cause of the violence.

``A blood-feud could most probably explain the battle,'' Dr. Kemal Bekri of the Harari State Agriculture Bureau told ENA. ''If drought had been the cause, the beasts would have attacked human settlements rather than butchering one another.''

Mengistu Endailalu, a resident of the nearest village to the scene of the fighting, said that 45 years ago a group of desert hyenas was decimated by a single lion believed to have escaped from Emperor Haile Selassie's palace in the historic town of Harar.

``Once again, this time the hyenas lost the battle and ran away in disarray,'' Mengistu told ENA.

Her countrymen, who she said live in Boston, had handed her a red, yellow and green sweatband - the color of the Ethiopian flag - as she headed up a hill toward the end of the race.

"The flag they gave me in the hilly area gave me a boost, and I started running at a faster pace,'' said Roba, the 1996 Olympic marathon champion.

Roba now holds the third- and fourth-fastest times for the Boston Marathon. She was bested only by Joan Benoit Samuelson, who finished 2:21:43 in 1983, and by Uta Pippig, who ran it in 2:21:45 in 1994. Pippig is the only other woman to win three times in a row.

Lynn Jennings, the 38-year-old runner with 10 USA Outdoor Championships and an Olympic bronze medal under her belt, outpaced all of her American competitors, coming in 12th overall with a time of 2:38:37.

It was only her second marathon. In 1978, when she was just a high school senior at the Bromfield School in Harvard, Jennings came in third as an unofficial entrant in the Boston.

On Monday, Jennings beat the time of 2:47 she set 21 years ago, perhaps starting a new phase of her 23-year running career as a marathoner.

She said after the race that she was happy she had qualified for the Olympic trials by coming in under 2:42 minutes.

Her coach, John Babington, said she ran too fast early on.

"She was suffering, but she didn't break down completely,'' Babington said.

Jennings said she didn't expect to tire quite so early in the contest. She had run even with the leaders for the first half of the 26.2-mile race and then faded over the next few miles.

The race was a blur, she said, except for the cheering of the fans who lined the entire route from Hopkinton to Boston.

"I was absolutely carried along by the fans,'' said the Newmarket, N.H., resident.

For the first half of the race, 20-year-old Sun Yingje of China ran well ahead of the pack at a very fast, nearly a minute ahead of her closest pursuer.

Roba and Ndereba, 20, of Kenya, ran neck and neck behind her until they caught up to Sun at about 121/2 miles.

Roba later said she didn't even notice Sun until the middle of the race.

For the next four miles, the two African women were locked in a stride-for-stride battle until Roba began to open up against Ndereba.

Ndereba, making her marathon debut, fell behind 32-year-old Franziska Rochat-Moser at the three-quarter mark and finished sixth.

Rochat-Moser also is a lawyer who owns a gourmet restaurant in her hometown of Crissier, Switzerland.

Yukio Arimori, 32, finished third. She is a heroine in her native Japan for her second-place finish in the 1992 Olympic marathon and third at the 1996 Atlanta Games.