Bomb blasts outside two New Mexico churches disrupt Sunday services

Bombs went off outside two churches in the southern New Mexico City of Las Cruces on Sunday, disrupting services and sending federal agents and local police to investigate.

No one was hurt and there was minimal property damage.

The first explosion blew up a mailbox near an administrative entrance to the Calvary Baptist Church as several worshipers gathered inside for Sunday morning prayers, and a second blast went off 20 minutes later in a trash can near the main entrance to Holy Cross Catholic Church, where services had just started, police said.

The glass entryway to the second church was shattered, but there was little other damage to either church, and no injuries were reported, said Dan Trujillo, a spokesman for the Las Cruces Police Department.

Both churches were closed after the blasts as law enforcement personnel searched for clues to the explosions. The two sites are a few miles apart in Las Cruces, New Mexico's second-largest city, located about 20 miles northwest of the Texas border town of El Paso.

The twin bombings drew investigators from the Las Cruces police, the Dona Ana County Sheriff's Office, the state police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Trujillo said there were no arrests and no suspects immediately identified in the case.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman from Los Angeles; Editing by Toni Reinhold)