Nashville suspect died in explosion

WASHINGTON－A 63-year-old identified as being the man behind a large explosion in Nashville, Tennessee, died in what authorities on Sunday called a bombing. The blast rocked the downturn area of the southern US city on Christmas Day.

"Anthony Warner is the bomber. He was present when the bomb went off, and he perished in the bombing," US Attorney Don Cochran said at a news conference.

FBI forensic experts matched DNA samples recovered from the scene to that of Anthony Warner, whose home in nearby Antioch was searched on Saturday by federal agents.

The motive behind the bombing has not been released, as investigation is proceeding into the blast in which a recreational vehicle was detonated at 6:30 am on Friday on 2nd Avenue North in downtown Nashville, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent for Public Affairs Doug Korneski.

Federal agents on Saturday searched what was confirmed as Warner's home in Antioch.

The explosion caused structural damage to several buildings, fires and power outages in the region. Three people were injured but were not in critical condition.

Motives remain unclear

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 US' country music capital damaged businesses including an AT&T switching center. AT&T is a US telecommunications company.

As investigators followed up on hundreds of tips from members of the public, they visited a Nashville real estate agency where he had worked on computers on Saturday.

The owner of the agency, 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 Warner told the company in an e-mail that he would no longer be working for it.

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

Damage to the switching center 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 around a meter of 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.

Agencies - Xinhua