Austin bombing suspect blows himself up with police closing in

Houston, March 21 

The suspected “serial bomber” who terrorised the US state of Texas, especially its capital Austin, for nearly three weeks with parcel bombs is dead after he blew himself up in his car as a SWAT team closed in, police said today. Austin has been on edge amid the attacks, which have led to the deployment of hundreds of police officers to the city.

Since the bombings started on March 2, investigators frantically searched for clues, calling the attacks the work of a “serial bomber” who increasingly changed tactics.

Two people were killed and six others injured in five bombings, terrorising the Texan capital with fear for 19 days. The suspect, identified by US media as Mark Anthony Conditt, a white man, was killed after detonating a device when officers approached his car off a highway in the city of Round Rock, north of the state capital.

Police said the suspect was 24, but some reports citing public records said he was 23.

The man detonated a bomb in his vehicle on the side of Interstate 35 in Round Rock, north of Austin, as SWAT team members approached him, authorities said. The incident follows four bomb attacks in Austin, the state capital, and one in Schertz, 104km south.

Texas Governor Greg Abbot told Fox News that the suspect lived with two flatmates in Flugerville, close to Austin. — PTI