A gunman shot dead 10 people, including a one-year-old baby, when he went on a bloody rampage through two small rural towns in the deep south of America.

The man then killed himself after being surrounded by armed police at a factory in the small town of Geneva in Alabama. Several members of his family were also among the dead.

Although there was no immediate explanation for the killings, police were investigating claims that the gunman, Michael McLendon, 27, was taking revenge for losing his job in the growing US economic slump.

McLendon is believed to have begun the bloodbath at his home in the town of Kinston, also in Alabama. He shot his mother, Lisa, before setting fire to the house. Four dogs also died. Armed with a semi-automatic weapon, he drove a few miles east to the town of Samson.

There, he shot his grandfather, grandmother, uncle and aunt as they sat on a porch. Barry Aplin, a neighbour, heard the shooting and saw him chase a woman into a nearby residence. "I saw him in the living room just blazing the world up," he said.

The wife of a sheriff's deputy who lived in a house nearby was also killed, along with her one-year-old child. A three-month-old baby, covered in its mother's blood, was taken to hospital. McLendon then went on a rampage through the town, killing two more people.

He then drove 15 miles further to Geneva. Two more people are believed to have died, one at a petrol station. His car was rammed by police on Highway 52, near a Wal-Mart store, where shots were exchanged and the police chief of Geneva was hit in the shoulder.

McLendon managed to get away and was chased to the Reliable Metal Products plant, where he once worked, and fired a 30-round burst in another shoot-out with police. He then shot himself.

Among the police pursuing him was the deputy whose family had been killed. "While the shoot-out was going on the deputy had no idea what had happened to his family," said local sheriff Greg Ward. "This is probably the worst thing that's happened in my career."

Geneva's mayor Wynnton Melton said: "Had McLendon not been slowed down, no doubt we would have had more casualties. He was shooting anybody he saw."

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