Investigators in Utah have recovered the weapon that was used to kill conservative activist Charlie Kirk, FBI official Robert Bohls said on Thursday, describing it as a high-powered rifle that was found in a wooded area where the shooter had fled.

Mr Bohls made the comments during a press conference.

Police and federal agents have mounted an intense manhunt on Thursday for the sniper believed to have fired the single gunshot that killed Mr Kirk as he was fielding questions about gun violence during a university appearance.

Mr Kirk was shot in the neck while speaking at a campus event at Utah Valley University in Orem, south of Salt Lake City, on Wednesday.

The lone perpetrator suspected of firing the single gunshot that struck Kirk in the neck, apparently from a rooftop sniper’s nest on campus, remained “at large,” said Beau Mason, commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety, at a news conference four hours after the event.

Security camera footage showed a person believed to be the assailant dressed in all-dark clothing, Mr Mason told reporters. But some eight hours after the killing, authorities said they still had no suspect in custody.

State police issued a statement on Wednesday night saying: “There is an ongoing investigation and manhunt for the shooter.” Two men had been detained but both were released, and have “no current ties to the shooting”, police said.

The killing has prompted outrage from Democrats and Republicans over the latest act of political violence in the United States, with Donald Trump lamenting the loss of a key ally.

“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” the US president posted on his Truth Social platform.

The president ordered flags to be lowered to half mast to honour Mr Kirk, who was prominent in Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement.

Mr Trump, who survived an assassination attempt while campaigning in July 2024, also blamed the violence on the “radical left [who] have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis” in an evening video address. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country,” he said.

[ Charlie Kirk killing is the sickening latest episode in American political carnageOpens in new window ]

[ Who was Charlie Kirk, the right-wing provocateur shot in Utah?Opens in new window ]

Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Mr Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans The American Comeback and Prove Me Wrong.

A single shot rings out and Mr Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the left side of his neck.

Immediately before the shooting, Mr Kirk was taking questions from an audience member about mass shootings and gun violence.

“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” the person asked.

Mr Kirk responded: “Too many.”

The questioner followed up: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Mr Kirk asked.

Then a single shot rang out.

The assailant wore dark clothing and fired from a building roof some distance away to the courtyard where the event took place.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox described the death of Mr Kirk as a “political assassination”.

“I’ve been in touch with president Trump, with FBI director Kash Patel. We are completely aligned with our state and federal partners as we work through this case,” Mr Cox said at a news conference.

US vice-president JD Vance called Mr Kirk “a genuinely good guy and a young father” and tweeted prayers.

Former vice-president Kamala Harris said she was “deeply disturbed” by the shooting of Mr Kirk, who organised against her presidential campaign last year.

“I condemn this act, and we all must work together to ensure this does not lead to more violence,” she wrote.

Congress’s top Republicans and Democrats joined in the condemning the attack.

The House oversight committee took a break from considering more than a dozen bills to change laws in Washington DC as part of Mr Trump’s militarised crackdown on crime in the district to hold a moment of silence in Mr Kirk’s honour.

Former Democratic president Barack Obama condemned political violence as “despicable” and said it had “no place in our democracy”.

“Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children,” he wrote.

Some conservatives echoed Mr Trump and were quick to blame liberals for the shooting.

“The Left is the party of murder,” said Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive who threw the federal government into turmoil earlier this year as chair of Mr Trump’s department of government efficiency initiative.

Mr Kirk emerged in recent years as one of the most influential young conservatives in the country and established himself as a close ally of Mr Trump. He cofounded Turning Point USA in 2012 and became a fixture on college campuses, where he hosted rallies like the one in Utah that often draw large crowds.

Even though he was not part of the administration, his influence in the White House was significant. Since the November election, he helped vet prospective appointees, testing their loyalty to Mr Trump. - AP/Guardian/Reuters