Texas serial bombing suspect dead after blowing himself up inside car - police
Police sources name the suspect as Mark Anthony Conditt as authorities warn that more explosive devices could be planted.
The man suspected of carrying out a series of bombings in Texas has died after blowing himself up in his car as police closed in on him.
.Austin Police chief Brian Manley said the 24-year-old white male - named by police sources as Mark Anthony Conditt - had been tracked down to a hotel in Round Rock, near the US state's capital.
Officers were waiting for tactical teams to arrive to arrest the suspect when his vehicle began to drive away, Mr Manley said.
Authorities followed the car, which ran into a ditch at the side of the road, and the suspect detonated an explosive device when a SWAT team approached.
One of the SWAT team members shot at the vehicle and a second officer was injured in the explosion.
Police said the suspect - who has not been formally identified - suffered "significant injuries" in the bomb blast.
He lived in Pflugerville, 25 miles outside Austin where four of the bombings took place, the city's mayor Victor Gonzales said.
He also urged Texas residents to be "vigilant" for other possible explosives, adding: "We do not know where he has been in the past 24 hours."
FBI agent Chris Combs, head of the agency's San Antonio office, said, "We are concerned that there may be other packages that are still out there."
US president Donald Trump, who had earlier branded the Texas bomber a "sick individual", praised law enforcement officials.
The suspect was identified in the last 24 hours after shipping an explosive device from a FedEx store in the Texas capital, the Austin Statesman reported.
Authorities found store receipts showing suspicious transactions and obtained a search warrant for his Google search history which also showed suspicious behaviour, an official told the newspaper.
Police then used mobile phone technology to trace the suspect to the hotel, according to reports.
Earlier, CCTV images of a "person of interest" were shared on US media showing a white man with blond hair carrying packages at a FedEx store in Austin.
Two African-American men - Anthony Stephan House, 39, and Draylen Mason, 17, - have been killed and several other people hurt in a series of bombings over the past two weeks.
Mr House died after a device exploded at his home in Austin in the first attack on 2 March.
Mr Mason was killed and his mother critically injured in a blast on 13 March after a package was left on his doorstep.
Hours later, a 75-year-old Hispanic woman was also critically injured after another package exploded in Austin.
On Sunday, two men, aged 22 and 23, were seriously hurt in an explosion involving a tripwire device.
In the early hours of Tuesday, a FedEx worker was hurt after a package bound for Austin containing nails and shrapnel blew up at a distribution centre in the San Antonio town of Schertz.
