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Fifth blast in Texas as police hunt for ‘serial bomber’ behind attacks that have killed two and hurt six

A task force of hundreds of members of law enforcement are working the case, including criminal profilers and experts from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

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Law enforcement officers investigate the latest bombing on Monday. Photo: TNS

A home-made bomb blew up at a FedEx Corp distribution centre early on Tuesday, injuring one person, officials said, the fifth explosion in the state this month. It was bound for Austin, the site of four other bombings.

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Officials did not say if they believed the device, which exploded at the FedEx facility near San Antonio, was the work of a “serial bomber” who police feared may be responsible for the four earlier devices, which killed two people and injured six others.

The first three were parcel bombs left on residential doorsteps, while the fourth on Sunday was apparently set off by a trip wire. Police warned that the latest bomb had a more sophisticated design than the others.

The package exploded shortly after midnight local time at a distribution facility in Schertz, Texas, outside San Antonio, about 105km south of Austin, the San Antonio Fire Department said on Twitter.

Agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on the scene and investigating, fire officials said. They did not give the address for the package.

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“We are investigating it as being possibly related to our open investigation,” FBI spokeswoman Michelle Lee told the Austin American-Statesman newspaper. “We can’t know for sure until we have an opportunity to look at the evidence itself.”

The wounded employee, who was not identified, was taken to a hospital with injuries that officials described as non life-threatening. About 75 people were working at the facility at the time, fire officials said.

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