Terrorist gunmen shot their way into residential Western housing compounds in the Saudi capital of Riyadh and detonated three suspected car bombs, killing 34 people – including at least eight Americans – in an attack officials say bears the fingerprint of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.
The State Department originally put the total dead at 91, but later modified its assessment.
Nearly 200 others were being treated for injuries at two hospitals, many in intensive care. At least 37 of the injured were Americans.
The charred bodies of nine attackers are believed among those recovered from the rubble, according to a Saudi Interior Ministry official.
Britain’s Sky News quoted a witness as saying, “There were bodies everywhere and blood everywhere.”
Explosives-packed cars crashed into each of the three compounds and blew up, U.S. and Saudi officials said. Shortly beforehand, automatic gunfire was heard as the attackers shot their way into the compounds, witnesses and Saudi officials said.
“We were sleeping when we were woken up by the sound of gunfire,” a European resident told Arab News. “Moments later, a loud explosion was heard followed by another bigger explosion.”
The blasts shot fireballs into the sky and ripped the facades off the five-story buildings.
About half of the residents of the compounds, in the Gharnata, Ishbiliya and Cortobah areas, are Western corporate executives and other professionals, a Saudi official said. They are mostly British, Italian and French, but some are Americans, including U.S. government workers and their families.
A fourth explosion targeted a U.S.-Saudi-owned company, security officials said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombings.
They came hours before the scheduled arrival of Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is touring the Middle East in a push for peace.
“Terrorism strikes anywhere and everyone. It is a threat to the civilized world,” said Powell upon his arrival in Riyadh.
Powell initially said 10 Americans had been killed, then deferred to officials at the Saudi Interior Ministry who put the American death toll at seven.
During an appearance in Indianapolis, President George W. Bush denounced the attack and offered condolences to the families of the victims.
“These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate, and the United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice.”
Powell said the attacks had the “earmarks” of al-Qaida, the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“We will commit ourselves again to redouble our efforts to work closely with our Saudi friends and friends all around the world to go after al-Qaida, to go after terrorism,” he said today.
Upon touring the damage, Powell described the attack as “well planned” and “well executed.” He said the facility had been cased ahead of time.
The assault came less than a week after al-Qaida warned of an imminent strike.
Al-Majallah, a sister publication of Arab News, citing an e-mail message from a newly appointed Al-Qaida spokesman, Thabet ibn Qais, said last week that “an attack against America was inevitable.”
Al-Qaida has “carried out changes in its leadership and sidelined the Sept. 11, 2001 team,” the magazine quoted Thabet as saying. “Future missions have been entrusted to the new team, which is well protected against the US intelligence services,” the magazine quoted Thabet as saying. “The old leadership does not know the names of any of its members.”
In 1996, a U.S. complex in Saudi Arabia, the Khobar Towers, was attacked by terrorists, killing 19 Americans and wounding hundreds more.
A U.S. troop withdrawal from Saudi Arabia has been one of the main demands of al-Qaida. The United States said April 29 it was ending military operations in the Kingdom and removing virtually all of its forces after the Iraq war.
Saudi Arabia has a large population of expatriate workers, including about 35,000 Americans.
Despite Powell’s trip, the U.S.State Department advised U.S. nationals in the country to stay in their homes.
Americans have been warned by the State Department to avoid travel to Saudi Arabia due to a rise in concerns about terrorism.
The U.S. renewed its warning May 1, Reuters News Agency reports, amid credible intelligence information about a possible al-Qaida plot to strike American targets there. The same day, a gunman wounded a U.S. civilian at a naval base in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi authorities suspect the attack was the work of 19 men being sought in connection with other suspected terror plots in the country – 17 Saudis, an Iraqi with Kuwaiti and Canadian citizenship, and a Yemeni.
An unidentified ministry official quoted by the Saudi Press Agency said Saudi security forces in search of the suspected al-Qaida terrorists seized a large cache of weapons and explosives in Riyadh last week, the Associated Press said.
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