Blasts rock Saudi capital

2003-05-13 06:30

Riyadh - At least three people were killed and more than 50 wounded when three powerful blasts rocked the Saudi capital on Monday night, all apparently targeting American-inhabited residences or offices, said residents and hospital sources.

A state department official in Washington said the United States believed three car bombs were detonated in front of three Riyadh compounds housing American and other Western nationals.

The Saudi interior ministry confirmed the three explosions without immediately detailing the targets of the blasts, which happened on the eve of a visit to the kingdom by US secretary of state Colin Powell, who is now in Jordan as part of a Middle East tour.

The explosions also came days after Riyadh announced it had uncovered a cell of the al-Qaeda terror network of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden.

Residents said at least three people, including a Western national, were killed in one of the explosions.

The three men - the Westerner whose nationality was not known, a Saudi and a Lebanese - died when a blast hit the Al-Hamra residential compound, that is home mainly to Americans and other Westerners in eastern Riyadh.

"Many of the wounded were in critical condition when they were transferred to hospital," one resident said.

Two villas in the compound, on the road to the city's airport, were wrecked and a restaurant and leisure centre burned in the explosion which residents said had been triggered by a car bomb.

At least 50 injured from the blasts were admitted to the National Guard hospital but four other hospitals in the eastern sector of the capital also reported receiving a number of wounded, according to hospital sources.

Japan said three of its nationals were slightly hurt.

Gunfire was heard in the Al-Hamra compound both before and after the explosion, witnesses said.

"Armed men fired on the guards of the compound before driving into the complex and blowing up the car," Awadh al-Qahtani, a resident of Al-Hamra district where the complex is located, said.

Another explosion targeted the premises of Venyl, an American firm that trains members of the Saudi National Guard headed by Crown Prince Abdullah, witnesses said.

The building, in the Janadriyah district also in eastern Riyadh, houses both the offices and residences of Venyl personnel. Ambulances were again sent to the scene, where a fire had broken out.

A Saudi security official initially said a third blast targeted the Sianco company affiliated to the National Guard which employs foreign experts in Al-Nahda district.

But another source said Sianco is located next to the Venyl premises and was not specifically targeted.

Expatriates

A compound in eastern Riyadh inhabited by expatriates, mainly Americans, was the target of the third blast, according to the source close to the manager of the al-Jadawel complex.

The source said the blast caused casualties, but no further details were immediately available.

In a message following the blasts, the US embassy in Riyadh urged the up to 40 000 Americans residing in the kingdom to stay at home and keep away from windows and doors.

It said the embassy had received reports of attacks against several residential compounds in the Riyadh area beginning at approximately 23:00, adding that it had "some reports ... of casualties."

"Saudi security forces ... have been asked to take the appropriate measures to protect all other sites in the kingdom where Americans reside," it said.

On April 30, the embassy had warned that terrorist groups may be in the "final phases" of planning attacks on American interests in Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh said on May 7 it had uncovered an al-Qaeda cell that planned to carry out major attacks in the kingdom and that security forces were hunting 17 Saudis, one Kuwaiti-Canadian of Iraqi origin and a Yemeni.

Searches of their hideout and getaway car netted a huge cache of arms, including 55 hand grenades, 377 kilograms of explosive, and 2 545 bullets of different calibers, the interior ministry said on Wednesday.

With anti-US sentiment running high in the kingdom following the US-led war on Iraq, Riyadh and Washington announced in late April they were ending the presence of some 10 000 US troops, dozens of aircraft and a state-of-the-art command and control system in the kingdom.

The departure of US forces from the kingdom, home to Islam's holiest sites, was the main demand of bin Laden, who is accused of masterminding the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States allegedly carried out by 19 Islamist militants including 15 Saudis.

But a Saudi weekly reported last week that al-Qaeda was preparing a new attack on the United States on the scale of September 11, and a Saudi Islamist group believed close to bin Laden's network called on an Islamist website on Sunday for revenge attacks on US interests following the huge arms seizure in Riyadh.

The State Department official said, however, that it was "way too early" to say whether al-Qaeda was behind Monday night's attacks.

- AFX