Washington sniper 'strikes again'

The Washington area sniper appeared to have struck again this morning when a bus driver was hit in the stomach by a single shot at a bus stop in Maryland. He later died in hospital

The shooting took place at just before 6am local time and the victim, aged 40, was flown by helicopter to hospital as police 'locked down" the area of the shooting in the hope of trapping the gunman.

Road blocks were set up in Montgomery County around Connnecticut Avenue, a main thoroughfare which runs from Washington out to the northern suburbs of the US capital.

The driver was thought to have been at the top of the steps of a commuter bus at the bus stop on Connecticut Avenue. He underwent emergency surgery but could not be saved

The shooting occurred near the site of five other sniper attacks. If today's killing is linked to the sniper, it will take the death toll to 10 since 2 October. He has also wounded three people firing from some distance away and needing just a single bullet to hit his target. Most of the shootings have been in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs of Washington.

Today's shooting followed another appeal from police for the sniper to make contact with them to continue their dialogue.

Charles Moose, the Montgomery County police chief, said: "The person you called could not hear everything that you said ­ the audio was unclear and we want to get it right. Call us back so that we can clearly understand." He gave no details on who the caller might be or when the call was received.

Earlier yesterday two men were arrested near the scene of the most recent shooting in Ashland, Virginia. The arrests initially appeared to be a breakthrough but sources suggested later that the two men ­ illegal workers from Latin America ­ were not linked to the shootings. Last night the 24-year-old Mexican and a Guatemalan aged 35 were being handed over to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service to be deported.

A police statement said no charges had been filed against the men but shed no light on why they were taken into custody in the first place.

Meanwhile it emerged that a note found in woods close to the scene of Saturday night's shooting referred to a financial payment. While the details of the note are unclear, sources said the message "hinted" at some sort of demand for money. It is not clear whether police believe the note was left by the gunman or if it was a hoax.

Police were led to the note by a telephone call made to the sniper hotline. Officers subsequently traced the source of the call to a public telephone in the Richmond suburbs, not far from the site of Saturday night's shootings.

It appears that police Swat teams were staking out several locations in the vicinity of the pay phone when they swooped at around 8.30am yesterday and arrested the two men. The 24-year-old was seized as he was apparently leaning from his van to use another telephone ­ close to the one from where the tip was made ­ in an Exxon petrol station. Witnesses said the van was a Plymouth Voyager with a temporary Virginia licence.

Keith Underwood, service manager at a car dealership next door, said officers converged on the van and pulled the driver out. "He was taken out under control," he said. "I didn't see any resistance at all."

It is understood that the communication referred to by Mr Moose in his appeal was made in a separate phone call. Reports said the message was unclear because the caller had an unidentified accent.

The 37-year-old man shot on Saturday was said to be in a stable condition after having his spleen and parts of his pancreas and stomach removed during six hours of surgery. Doctors were cautiously optimistic but said he would need more surgery.

By lunchtime yesterday he was conscious and responding to his wife's voice, said Dr Rao Ivatury at the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals in Richmond. "It's going to be a stormy course," he added.

Surgeons removed the bullet from the man and turned it over to investigators, enabling police to reveal that ballistics tests linked the incident to the 11 previous shootings. As in the previous shootings, the victim was felled by one shot.

A funeral service was held yesterday in Arlington, Virginia, for Linda Franklin, 47, the victim of the last fatal shooting linked to the sniper. Mrs Franklin was shot on 14 October outside a Home Depot store in Falls Church, Virginia.

The first apparent message from the sniper was found near the scene of a shooting that critically injured a 13-year-old boy outside his school in Prince George's County, Maryland, east of Washington.

The message in that incident was on a tarot "death" card directed to police, reading, "I am God."