FEDS PROBE RACE ANGLE IN SOUTHERN BLAZES.(MAIN)

Byline: Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Recent fires at predominantly black Southern churches are being investigated by the Justice Department as possible civil rights violations.

Attorney General Janet Reno said Thursday her department is investigating whether the fires at churches in Alabama and Tennessee were racially motivated.

She said the Justice Department's civil rights division and the FBI are conducting the investigation. Reno provided few details, but a department spokesman later said the investigation involved more than eight fires.

A law enforcement source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said more than a dozen fires in at …