BERLIN - A teenage gunman who killed at least 10 people at his former school in Germany yesterday is dead after shooting himself in the car park of a shopping centre, media reported.

BERLIN - A teenage gunman who killed at least 10 people at his former school in Germany yesterday is dead after shooting himself in the car park of a shopping centre, media reported.

The 17-year-old former pupil at the school near Stuttgart had sprayed bullets around him, police said, before fleeing, pursued by armed commandos with helicopters and dogs.

Dressed in black combat gear, he went on the rampage at his former school, killing at least 10 people before turning the gun on himself.

Police said that several others were wounded in the shooting spree at the secondary school in the picturesque town of Winnenden, near the southern city of Stuttgart.

German television earlier reported that a suspect had been arrested but police said that he had fled the school in the direction of the town centre.

The editor of the local paper, Frank Nipkau, told television channel N-TV that eight pupils and two adults were shot dead at the secondary school.

Other reports said nine were killed in the school and a 10th as the gunman fled.

"The gunman just sprayed bullets all around him," N-TV cited an unnamed witness as saying.

The town of Winnenden, which lies about 25km northeast Stuttgart in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, has about 27000 inhabitants. - Sapa-AFP