2 arrested — is it over?

FREDERICK, Md. — A 42-year-old Army veteran and a teenager from Jamaica were arrested at a roadside rest stop Thursday for questioning in the three-week wave of deadly sniper attacks that have terrorized the Washington, D.C., area. A law enforcement source said a gun was found in their car.

The arrests — linked to a telephoned boast about a deadly Alabama robbery — raised hopes of a conclusion to the intensive and often frustrating investigation of the shootings that have killed 10 people and critically wounded three others since Oct. 2.

The men taken into custody were not immediately charged in the sniper attacks, but authorities made it clear the arrests were considered pivotal. A newspaper report said the men were motivated by anti-American bias; police in Washington state, where the men recently lived, said they were not part of any organized group.

A federal law enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said authorities recovered a weapon, believed to be a rifle, as well as a scope and a tripod, from the suspects' car. The source did not have details about the gun or whether it was a .223-caliber like the weapon or weapons used in the sniper shootings.

President Bush was told that federal authorities were reasonably sure the case had been solved, a senior administration official told The Associated Press, also on condition of anonymity.

"There's a strong feeling these people are related to the sniper shootings," said Douglas Gansler, state's attorney in Maryland's Montgomery County, where the sniper task force is based. Asked if he believed the sniper was still at large, he said "no."

The arrests occurred hours after authorities descended on a home in Tacoma, Wash., believed to hold clues important to the investigation. They then issued a nationwide alert for the car, spotted by a motorist and an attendant at the rest stop.

Charles Moose, the Montgomery County police chief who is leading the investigation, had said John Allen Muhammad, 42, was being sought for questioning in the slayings and called him "armed and dangerous." Authorities said Muhammad was traveling with John Lee Malvo, 17.

Deseret News graphicSniper suspectsRequires Adobe Acrobat.

Muhammad served in the Army as a machinist and had no training as a sniper, according to a senior defense official. Another official said Muhammad was discharged from the Army in the mid-1990s.