Boy, 5, safe after hostage drama

A five-year-old US boy has been safely released after a day long stand-off between police and his abductor.

Police in Alabama said that Jim Dykes, the man who abducted the boy from a school bus after fatally shooting the bus driver, is dead.

They said that they stormed a bunker in Alabama to rescue the child after his kidnapper was seen with a firearm.

Steve Richardson from the FBI’s office in Mobile said that week-long negotiations with Dykes, 65, deteriorated and he had been seen with a gun.

At that, officers believed the child was in imminent danger and entered the bunker. It was not immediately clear how Dykes died.

He had been accused of snatching the boy off a school bus and killing the driver six days ago.