AFP, Washington

US Secret Service agents shot an armed man near the White House during the night, an agency spokesman said early yesterday, while President Donald Trump was spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

The man had been hospitalised and his condition was “unknown,” the spokesman said in a statement that did not specify whether the White House or Trump may have been the intended target.

No injuries to Secret Service agents were reported, according to the statement posted by spokesman Anthony Guglielmi on social media platform X.

The agents had been warned by local police of a “suicidal” man travelling to Washington from Indiana and around midnight found his parked vehicle near 17th and F Streets, the statement said -- very near the White House. They then spotted an individual nearby who matched the description they had been given, the statement said.