'Internet threats' of Pentagon gunman

A MAN killed in a shoot-out with Pentagon police drove cross-country and arrived at the military headquarters' subway entrance armed with two semi-automatic weapons, US authorities have revealed.

The gunman apparently left behind internet postings resentful of the US government and airing suspicions about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

John Patrick Bedell, 36, of Hollister, California, was named as the gunman in Thursday night's attack. Authorities said he had had previous run-ins with the law.

Investigators found no immediate connection to terrorism, and the attack that superficially wounded two police officers at the massive Defence Department headquarters appears to be a case of "a single individual who had issues", Richard Keevill, chief of Pentagon police, said last night.

Mr Keevill described Bedell as "very well-educated" and well-dressed, saying Bedell was wearing a suit when he showed up at the secure Pentagon entrance about 6:40pm and blended in with workers. He was concealing two 9mm semi-automatic weapons and "many magazines" of ammunition.

"He just reached in his pocket, pulled out a gun and started shooting" at point-blank range, Mr Keevill said. "He walked up very cool. He had no real emotion on his face."

Bedell died yesterday from head wounds suffered when the two injured officers and another officer returned fire, Mr Keevill said.

The exchange of fire at the subway entrance in Arlington, Virginia, lasted less than a minute, but numerous shots were fired, Mr Keevill said, adding that investigators were "still counting".

Bedell was not wearing body armour, he added.

The two officers injured have been released from the hospital. One suffered a thigh wound and the other was hit in the shoulder. Mr Keevill said both were superficial injuries.

The police chief added that he did not know what motivated the shooting: "I have no idea what his intentions were."

Signs emerged that Bedell harboured ill-feelings toward the government and the armed forces, and had questioned the circumstances behind the 11 September, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In an internet posting, a user by the name JPatrickBedell wrote that he was "determined to see that justice is served" in the death of Marine Colonel James Sabow, who was found dead in the garden of his California home in 1991. The death was ruled a suicide, but the case has long been the source of theories of a cover-up.

Col Sabow's family has maintained that he was murdered because he was about to expose covert military operations in Central America involving drug-smuggling.

Mr Keevill said yesterday that authorities had not made "a final determination" that the shooter was the same Bedell.

The user named JPatrickBedell wrote that the Sabow case was "a step toward establishing the truth of events such as the September 11 demolitions".

That same posting railed against the government's enforcement of marijuana laws and included links to the author's 2006 court case in Orange County, California, involving allegations of cultivating marijuana and resisting a police officer.

Court records available online show the date of birth on the case mentioned by JPatrickBedell matches that of the John Patrick Bedell suspected in the shooting.