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Steve Richardson with the FBI's office in Mobile said at a news conference Monday afternoon that negotiations had deteriorated with 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes. Dykes, who a week earlier had abducted the child from a school bus after fatally shooting the driver, had been seen with a gun. Officers believed the boy was in imminent danger, Richardson said.

Officers stormed the bunker just after 3 p.m. CST to rescue the child, who was taken to a hospital in nearby Dothan. Officials have said the child has Asperger's syndrome.

However, it was not immediately clear how Dykes died.

Daryle Hendry, who lives about a quarter-mile from where Dykes' bunker was located, said he heard a boom Monday afternoon, followed by what sounded like a gunshot, all around the time officials said they stormed the bunker.

Melissa Nighton, the city clerk in Midland City, said a woman had been praying in the town center Monday afternoon. Not long after, the mayor called her with news that Dykes was dead and that the boy was safe.

"She must have had a direct line to God because shortly after she left, they heard the news," Nighton said.

Neighbors described Dykes as a man who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property, and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a firearm.

Government records and interviews with neighbors indicate that Dykes joined the Navy in Midland City, serving on active duty from 1964 to 1969. His record shows several awards, including the Vietnam Service Medal and the Good Conduct Medal. During his service, Dykes was trained in aviation maintenance.

He had some scrapes with the law in Florida, including a 1995 arrest for improper exhibition of a weapon. The misdemeanor was dismissed. He also was arrested for marijuana possession in 2000.

He returned to Alabama about two years ago, moving onto the rural tract about 100 yards from his nearest neighbors.

Ronda Wilbur, a neighbor of Dykes who said the man beat her dog to death last year with a pipe, said she was relieved to be done with the stress of knowing Dykes was patrolling his yard and willing to shoot at anyone or anything that trespassed.

"The nightmare is over. It's been a long couple of years of having constant stress," she said.

Authorities have said Dykes gunned down 66-year-old bus driver Albert Poland Jr. before taking the boy from the bus. Poland, who was buried Sunday, has been hailed as a hero for protecting the other nearly two-dozen children on board from harm.

"This man was a true hero who was willing to give up his life so others might live," Gov. Robert Bentley said in a news release Monday after learning of the boy's rescue.

Stephen E. Richardson, a special agent with the F.B.I., said that the child, identified only as Ethan, was rescued here at about 3:12 p.m. The authorities said that Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, a Vietnam veteran with a deep distrust of the government, fatally shot a school bus driver last Tuesday before grabbing the boy and taking him to the bunker, which he built in his yard.

For days, law enforcement officers tried to negotiate a peaceful end to the standoff, but refused to discuss details of negotiations, except to suggest that the boy, who they said has a form of autism, was safe.

"Within the past 24 hours, negotiations deteriorated and Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun," Mr. Richardson said. "At this point, F.B.I. agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child."

It was not clear how Mr. Dykes was killed, nor was it immediately clear how the F.B.I. monitored Mr. Dykes's activities in the bunker. The authorities declined to answer questions about the details of the rescue, although earlier in the weeklong siege they said they had talked to him through a length of PVC pipe.

After the rescue, Mr. Richardson said Ethan, who appeared unharmed, was taken to a local hospital.

People near the scene described hearing two loud booms like explosions in midafternoon.

Residents said they were relieved the standoff was at an end.

"This is exactly what we prayed for," said Michael Senn, a church pastor. "We're just a small community in the Bible Belt. What got us through this tragedy was the community pulling together and praying together."

FBI agents entered the bunker to rescue the child after fearing that he was in "imminent danger," said Steve Richardson, special agent in charge in Mobile.

Negotiations with the suspect, identified as 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, had deteriorated during the previous 24 hours, Richardson said during a televised news conference.

"Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun," the FBI agent said.

The rescue of the boy came on the seventh day of a standoff in a rural corner of southeast Alabama involving Dykes, a retired trucker and veteran of the war in Vietnam.

The child was being treated at a local hospital, but was physically unharmed, Richardson added.

It was not immediately clear how Dykes died.

Dykes seized the kindergarten student last Tuesday after boarding a school bus near his home and killing its driver with four shots from a 9 mm handgun, local sheriff's department officials said.

A local law enforcement source said a stun or flash grenade was detonated as part of the operation to free the boy, but further details were not immediately released.

The drama near Midland City, Alabama, came amid heightened concerns about gun violence and school safety across the United States after the December shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school.

(Reporting by Tom Brown and Colleen Jenkins; editing by Dan Grebler, G Crosse)

During a Sunday session of Parliament, broadcast on state radio, Mr. Ahmadinejad singled out the head of the Parliament, Ali Larijani, a political rival with strong links to influential Shiite Muslim clerics and one of several brothers who have held top positions in the Iranian government.

His older brother, Sadegh, 52, heads Iran's judiciary, while another brother, Mohammad Javad, a Berkeley-educated mathematician, is also a judiciary official.

On Monday, Iran's state newspaper, Kayhan, which is run by an editor appointed by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hinted that Ayatollah Khamenei had been forced to step in to prevent both men from giving potentially damaging news conferences, which were both canceled at the last minute.

This was not the first time Ayatollah Khamenei has been forced to intervene in this feud. In October, he issued an edict aimed at stopping the infighting, saying that those creating divisions in the leadup to the June 14 presidential elections "betray" the country.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, who went to the Parliament in a failed attempt to head off the impeachment of his labor minister, Abdolreza Sheikholeslami, said Mr. Larijani and his fellow lawmakers had obstructed the government, stepped beyond their constitutional boundaries and written letters ordering the annulment of government decisions.

Instructed by Mr. Larijani to stick to the subject of the impeachment, Mr. Ahmadinejad said, "Don't order me to close my mouth because you say it's the law."

With that, Mr. Ahmadinejad, who for years has threatened to reveal the names of corrupt officials, played a video clip of a conversation in which another of Mr. Larijani's brothers, Fazel, appeared to discuss the purchase of a state company under favorable terms, the semiofficial Tabnak Web site reported. While Fazel Larijani used to head a medical association in Iran, his current position is unclear.

The public naming, rare in Iran, could signal a new phase in an already intense scrum between Mr. Ahmadinejad, who represents a powerful group of young, ambitious politicians, and Mr. Larijani, who is the official representative of the holy city of Qum, the center of Shiite scholarship in Iran.

Mr. Ahmadinejad said his associate, Saeed Mortazavi, 45, was also present at the taped meeting. In January, Mr. Mortazavi was dismissed as the head of Iran's enormous social welfare organization under pressure from Parliament. Some days later, however, he was rehired by the president in the same position, this time as official caretaker.

During the conversation, read out in part by Mr. Ahmadinejad to astonished lawmakers, Fazel Larijani appears to try to use his family connections to buy a factory from the social welfare organization. He promises leniency for Mr. Mortazavi, who faces several criminal proceedings over assertions that he played a role in the deaths of three protesters in a substandard prison in 2009.

"These are audio and video, and the tape is clear," Mr. Ahmadinejad is quoted as saying by the Iranian Students' News Agency. "If the honorable Parliament speaker sees fit, we can turn over the 24 to 25 hours to you," he said of the recordings. On Monday, Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency, a mouthpiece for Mr. Ahmadinejad, deepened the split by publishing the audio tape on its Web site.

Ali Larijani, cheered on by the Parliament, which has lost nearly each serious political battle with the president, silenced the room, saying, "Let him tell his words. If there is anything about my family, then let him talk about it."

Mr. Larijani said it was a "mafia film" and recalled how he had a meeting with Mr. Ahmadinejad's estranged brother, Davoud. "He said many things against you," Mr. Larijani told the president, "about economic corruption, about your inner circle and your relations with foreign countries."

For his part, Fazel Larijani strongly denied any wrongdoing, saying that while he did appear in the clip, the words were not his, but rather had been added in a voiceover. Calling Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Mortazavi "mafialike individuals," he said he would sue them both for "spreading lies and disturbing public opinion."

On Monday, several officials criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad and Ali Larijani, accusing them of lacking self-control and bringing shame on the country. "They broke the leader's heart and gave the friends of the Islamic republic almost a seizure," said Mojtaba Zolnour, a special consultant to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency reported. "They provided ammunition for the foreign media on the eve of our election."