Convent school, fifth church attacked in Malaysia

Arsonists in Malaysia struck at a convent school and a fifth church on Sunday amid rising tensions between majority Muslims and Christians over the use of the word "Allah" to describe the Christian God.

Police in the sleepy city of Taiping, around 300 km from the capital Kuala Lumpur, said a petrol bomb had been thrown at the guard house of a Catholic convent school but had failed to go off.

They also said they had found several broken bottles including paint thinners outside one of the country's oldest Anglican churches, All Saints, Taiping, and said one of the building's walls had been blackened.

The unprecedented attacks risk dividing the nation of 28 million people that has significant religious minorities, and could also complicate Prime Minister Najib Razak's plan to win back support from the non-Muslims before elections due by 2013.

The issue could pose a longer-term risk of political instability for Malaysia, which has been trailing Indonesia and Thailand for foreign investment and where investors have been frightened off by the prospect of an end to the predictable rule of the coalition that has governed for 52 years.

The row, over a court ruling that allowed a Catholic newspaper to use "Allah" in its Malay-language editions, prompted Muslims to protest at mosques on Friday and sparked arson attacks on four churches that saw one Pentecostalist church gutted.