TEN DIE IN ALABAMA SHOOTING SPREE !

A gunman has killed at least nine people in a series of shootings across two towns in the southern US state of Alabama before killing himself.

Officials say there were at least four separate shooting incidents.

The gunman fired on homes, a petrol station, shops and vehicles in Samson and Geneva near the Florida border.

Five people - including a child - were killed in one home. Several of the victims are believed to have been members of the gunman's family.

The gunman has not been formally identified.

The bloodshed began when the suspect is thought to have burned down a house where he lived with his mother near Samson, local coroner Robert Preachers told the Associated Press news agency.

Officials said they had not been able to get inside the house to determine a cause of death and determine whether the woman was the 10th victim of the killing spree.

The coroner said it was believed the suspect then headed to Samson where he shot and killed five people - four adults and a child - in one home.

"He started in his mother's house. Then he went to Samson and he killed his granny and granddaddy and aunt and uncle. He cleaned his family out," Mr Preachers said.

Police are investigating shootings in four different locations

The gunman then killed one person each in two other homes, before killing someone at a Samson supply store, and another person at a service station.

A police officer told Reuters news agency that two of the dead were the wife and child of a deputy sheriff.

"He just cruised his automobile through Samson and was spraying the people with semi-automatic weapons [fire] at random," the Reverend Mike Shirah, of Geneva's Maple Baptist Church, told the BBC.

Samson Mayor Clay King said the town had opened a crisis centre at a local church.

"I've lived here 44 years and never, never dreamed of this happening," Mr King told AP.

From Samson, the gunman drove 19km (12 miles) east to Geneva. At one point, officers rammed his car and gunfire was exchanged.

RECENT US SHOOTINGS Dec 2008: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus kills nine people and himself on Christmas Eve in LA Sept 2008: Six people die in a series of shootings in the north-west of Washington state June 2008: A worker at a plastics plant in Kentucky kills five people and wounds one other before killing himself Feb 2008: Five people die and 18 are wounded after a man opens fire at Northern Illinois University Dec 2007: A gunman kills eight people and wounds five at a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, before killing himself Apr 2007: 32 people and the gunman die at the Virginia Tech campus In quotes: Alabama shooting

Geneva police chief Frankie Lindsay says he was saved by his bullet-proof vest when the man shot at his patrol with an automatic weapon.

"About 11 rounds hit my vehicle," he told the BBC. "Some of the shrapnel from the bullets did enter my shoulder."

The suspect fired a total of 30 rounds during the exchange with police, officials say.

The gunman then went inside a metal products plant where he is believed to have once worked, and shot himself.

There is no indication yet of a motive for the killings. The FBI has sent an agent to assist the local sheriff's office.

The BBC's Andy Gallacher in Florida says the FBI is expecting the death toll to rise.

Samson has a population of about 2,000 people. Geneva's population is about about 4,400.

The towns are in a quiet rural area, our correspondent adds, and the local community are shocked that this incident has happened in such a place.

BBC NEWS REPORT.