The boys, aged 13 and 14, had confessed to police they used gasoline to set the Lanjisu Internet Cafe ablaze to take revenge on staff who would not let them use computers there, it was announced late Wednesday.

The children, identified only by the surnames Zhang and Song, were arrested the previous day, the Beijing city government said in a statement.

"Both admitted they often went to play in the Internet cafe. Two weeks ago they had a disagreement with the owner of the Lanjisu cafe and in revenge they bought gasoline and set it on fire. They admit the facts," the statement said.

"I burned the Lanjisu with gasoline because they would not let us play there," one of the boys, who had dyed blond hair with a black "Z" cut into the back, was shown saying on a Beijing television station.

The 24 people who died in the blaze in the early hours of Sunday morning are all thought to have been students at nearby universities and schools.

When the fire broke out, they were trapped inside the unlicensed second-storey cafe, which had bars across its windows and just one exit, which was locked. Another 13 people were injured, many suffering terrible burns, according to reports.

As soon as news of the arrests broke, China's Internet chatrooms + one of the freest public forums for discussions available to Chinese people + erupted with shock, anger and concern about social stablility.

"This is not an issue of Internet bars. It's a problem in the education of our youth," said one writer.

"These two boys were going to school. How can the school allow them to have haircuts like that? ... Did the teachers and principal bother to pay attention to them?" one participant asked.

The Beijing government statement said both youths were regularly absent from school following the divorces of their parents.

Investigators had found traces of fuel at the scene of the blaze, and the boys had been seen buying gasoline at a nearby service station around three hours before the fire, it said.

The statement did not specify how the boys would be dealt with, but the official China Daily said Thursday the 13-year-old would avoid punishment because China's criminal law exempts those under 14 years from criminal responsibility.

The older boy could be tried for arson, but would likely be given a relatively lenient sentence if convicted, it said.

Within hours of Sunday's blaze, authorities announced that all the 2,400 Internet cafes in Beijing + only 10 percent of which are licensed + would be shut pending investigation. The blaze also led to a crackdown on Internet cafes in other cities.

Beijing's vice mayor Liu Zhihua Wednesday condemned the popular hangout spots as an "opium" for the country's youth, while state media has criticized the cafes as a bad influence on youngsters.

The businesses have sprouted across China in recent years due to growing demand for Internet and computer access. Large numbers of mainly young people gather there to meet, chat on-line and play competitive computer games.

(Xinhua News Agency June 20, 2002)