Car bomb explodes in Saudi capital

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Car bomb explodes in Saudi capital
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi officials pointed to al-Qaeda terrorists
Sunday as responsible for a suicide car bombing that devastated a Riyadh
housing complex, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than 120.

Saudi rescue personel look through the rubble for additional bodies at
dawn Sunday at the site of Saturday night's attack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
By John Moore, AP

Rubble, broken glass, splintered furniture and charred, twisted hunks of
metal covered the scene of Saturday's attack, in which militants — possibly
disguised as police — shot their way into the compound in the upscale
neighborhood before detonating at least one vehicle packed with explosives.
The attack was similar in style to a deadly suicide bombing of another
Riyadh housing complex in May, also blamed on al-Qaeda. (Related story:
Senator: U.S. intelligence finds more attacks probable)

The Saudi Interior Ministry said the 11 dead included Saudis, Lebanese,
Sudanese and Egyptians, among them four children, the kingdom's official
news agency said. The ministry said 122 were injured, but all but 25 had
been discharged from hospitals by Sunday afternoon.

Among the dead were three Lebanese — a woman, a 6-year-old boy and a 4-year-
old girl — and four Egyptians — a couple and their two sons — according to
their countries' embassies in Riyadh.

The Interior Ministry said 86 people were wounded, mostly women and
children. Most of the residents of the 200-house compound were Lebanese,
though some Saudis live there as well as a few families from Germany, France
and Italy.

A Lebanese man who was slightly injured, Gaby Kallas, 44, told AP he heard
gunfire and three explosions. The ceiling of the compound cafeteria where he
and his friends were at the time collapsed and windows shattered, he said.

"A few minutes later I rushed home about two blocks away and found my family
OK," Kallas said. It was unclear if three bombs had detonated or whether one
set off multiple explosions.

The streets were crowded at the time of the bombing because of the holy
month of Ramadan, now in its third week, when Muslims fast during the day
and have dinners and parties late into the night.

Early Sunday, Al-Arabiya TV, quoting unnamed Saudi sources, reported the
discovery of an unspecified number of bodies belonging to attackers involved
in the blast. The Interior Ministry official, who spoke to The Associated
Press on condition of anonymity, said he did not know how many attackers
were involved.

The attack occurred a day after the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh and two other
American missions closed for security review, warning that terror attacks
could be imminent in the tense Gulf kingdom.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Amanda Batt said "some Americans
were treated for minor injuries and released," but there were "no known
American fatalities."

The Saudi Interior Ministry statement also said four U.S. citizens and six
Canadians had been injured.

Saudi officials toured the site Sunday and then sealed it off. Witnesses
described four residential buildings destroyed, surrounding buildings
heavily damaged, and at least six burned vehicles. Some said Saturday's
bombers used what appeared to be a police car.

Footage aired by state-run Saudi TV showed a large crater, apparently gouged
out by an explosion.

In comments published Sunday on the Web site of Saudi daily Okaz newspaper,
Interior Minister Prince Nayef said they could not rule out a connection to
suspected al-Qaeda terrorist cells targeted in recent sweeps, as a number of
suspects from those cells were still at large.

Adding to the al-Qaeda connection was the similiarity between Saturday's
bombing and other attacks blamed on the terror network — particularly the
May 12 suicide car bombings of other Riyadh compounds housing foreigners,
which killed 26 bystanders. Nine attackers also died.

Led by Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda has long opposed the
Saudi royal family, accusing it of being insufficiently Islamic and too
close to the West, particularly the United States.

On Sunday in London, the Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki al-
Faisal, condemned Saturday's attack as the work of an "evil cult"
whose "sole aim is the destruction of the kingdom."

By targeting foreigners' housing compounds, the attackers target the
backbone of the Saudi economy. Saudi Arabia is home to 6 million expatriate
workers, including about 35,000 Americans and 30,000 Britons. The kingdom
relies on foreigners in its oil industry, security forces and health sector.

"This evil must be stopped," Prince Turki said, without naming al-Qaeda. "We
call on all the people of the world to work with us in fighting this evil
and ridding the international community of this plague."

Saudi authorities, under U.S. pressure to act against terrorism and
extremism, have been cracking down on homegrown militants since the May 12
Riyadh attacks. Also, 15 of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks on the
United States were Saudis.

In the past week, police clashed with suspected al-Qaeda sympathizers in the
streets of the sacred city of Mecca on Monday, killing two militants and
uncovering a large cache of weapons. Three days later, two suspected
militants blew themselves up in Mecca to avoid arrest and a third suspect
was killed in a shootout with security forces in Riyadh.

Police said the explosions in Saturday's attack were three miles from an
entrance to the Saudi capital's diplomatic quarter, close to the Saudi royal
family's main palaces.

Almost all the foreign embassies in Riyadh — including the U.S. Embassy —
and most diplomats' homes are inside the diplomatic quarter, a guarded,
isolated neighborhood. Several residential compounds housing Western
business people are close to the diplomatic quarter.


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