Suspect killed in motor home explosion, say police

WASHINGTON • The 63-year-old suspect in the bombing that rocked Nashville on Christmas morning was killed in the blast that destroyed his motor home and damaged more than 40 businesses, the authorities have said.

Forensic experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) matched DNA samples recovered from the scene to that of Anthony Warner, whose home in nearby Antioch was searched last Saturday by federal agents.

Late on Sunday, the FBI tweeted a photo of Warner. "We've come to the conclusion that an individual named Anthony Warner is the bomber and he was present when the bomb went off and that he perished in the bombing," Mr Donald Cochran, US Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, told a news conference.

Officials said it was too early in the investigation to discuss the suspect's motives.

Warner's motor home, parked on a downtown street of Tennessee's largest city, exploded at dawn on Friday, moments after police responding to reports of gunfire noticed it and heard music and an automated message emanating from the vehicle warning of a bomb.

The explosion in the heart of America's country music capital injured three people and damaged businesses including an AT&T switching centre. It also disrupted mobile, Internet and TV services in central Tennessee and parts of four other states.

As investigators followed up on hundreds of tips from members of the public, they searched Warner's home last Saturday and visited a Nashville real estate agency where he had worked on computers.

The owner of Fridrich & Clark Realty, Mr Steve Fridrich, told The Tennessean newspaper that for four or five years, Warner had come into the office roughly once a month to provide computer consulting services, until this month when he told the firm in an e-mail he would no longer be working for it.

He gave no reason, according to Mr Fridrich. "He seemed very personable to us - this is quite out of character I think," Mr Fridrich told the newspaper.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper said on CBS News' Face The Nation programme on Sunday that local officials felt there had to be some connection between the bombing and the AT&T building.

Damage to the switching centre was so extensive that AT&T teams had to drill access holes into the wreckage to connect generators to critical equipment, as well as pump water from the basement. The company said in a statement on Sunday that it made "significant progress" overnight and had restored power to four floors of the building.

AT&T said it was aiming to restore all its wireless service by the end of Sunday. "As of now, 96 per cent of our wireless network is restored, 60 per cent of our business services are restored, and 86 per cent of our consumer broadband and entertainment services are restored," AT&T communications chief executive Jeff McElfresh said.

REUTERS