RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (May 12) - Hours before a visit by the American secretary of state, three explosions rocked the Saudi capital late Monday, including a car bomb at a compound housing Americans and other Westerners. There were casualties, Saudi security officials said.

An unidentified Interior Ministry official told the state-run Saudi Press Agency that three explosions occurred, but the report did not give details on the cause or location of the other two blasts.

Three Western compounds were attacked, an American who lives in one of the targeted areas told The Associated Press in an e-mail exchange from Riyadh. There was extensive damage to property, he said on condition of anonymity, adding that he believed there had been some deaths and an unknown number of injuries.

A U.S. official traveling with Secretary of State Colin Powell said they had been told that there were no American casualties in the explosions.

Powell, who is currently in neighboring Jordan, will go to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday as scheduled, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. He is seeking the Saudis' help in harnessing militant groups and in promoting Palestinian reform in the latest stop on a Mideast tour that has already taken him to Israel, the West Bank and Egypt.

The attacks Monday night follow a State Department warning earlier this month advising Americans to avoid travel to Saudi Arabia because of increased terrorism concerns.

A Saudi security official told The Associated Press that a black Chevrolet Caprice sedan crashed into a residential compound in Garnata, an eastern suburb in Riyadh. The officials said the explosion caused a number of injuries.

Witnesses told the AP that the force of the blast shook nearby buildings and rattled windows. Witnesses also reported hearing gunfire moments before the car exploded.

Smoke lingered over the compound as police cars and ambulances rushed in. Hundreds of anti-riot police and members of the elite National Guard converged on the scene, evacuating compound residents and sealing off the area. The compound is is owned by Riyadh's deputy governor Abdullah al-Blaidh and includes several residential complexes housing mainly Westerners and non-Saudis.

Saudi officials have recently announced that it foiled plans allegedly by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to carry out attacks in Saudi Arabia, the land of his birth. The kingdom was home to 15 of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001 attack hijackers.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced last week that most of the 5,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia would leave by the end of the summer. The presence of U.S. troops has been a major irritant to the kingdom's rulers, who face strong anti-American sentiment from the population.

The American military presence in Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam, was also among the reasons used by bin Laden as his rallying call for Muslims to attack U.S. interests worldwide.

Last week, a senior Saudi security official said suspected terrorists were receiving orders directly from bin Laden and had been planning attacks in Saudi Arabia targeting the royal family as well as American and British interests.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the prime targets were the defense minister, Prince Sultan, and his brother, the interior minister, Prince Nayef.

On Wednesday, authorities said they foiled plans by at least 19 suspected terrorists to carry out strikes and seized a large cache of weapons and explosives in the capital.

All escaped after a gunfight with police.

In remarks published Thursday, Prince Nayef said the men could be linked to bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network, which now was ''weak and almost nonexistent.''

Nayef said the men included 17 Saudis, an Iraqi holding Kuwaiti and Canadian citizenship, and a Yemeni. ''These men have only one goal in mind: Jihad (holy war) ... They have been brainwashed,'' he said.

Their names and pictures were shown on state-run Saudi television Wednesday, and a reward of more than $50,000 has been offered to anyone turning in any of the suspects.

The confiscated weapons included hand grenades, five suitcases of explosives, rifles and ammunition, as well as computers, communications equipment and cash, officials said.

News of the plot came a week after an American civilian working for the Saudi Royal Navy was attacked and slightly injured in eastern Saudi Arabia.

In 1996, a truck bombing killed 19 Americans at the Khobar Towers barracks in Dhahran. In 1995, a car bomb exploded at a U.S.-run military training facility in Riyadh. Seven people died, including five American advisers to the Saudi National Guard. The Islamic Movement for Change and two smaller groups in the region claimed responsibility.

AP-NY-05-12-03 1917EDT

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Blasts Hit Saudi City Before Powell Visit
15 minutes ago  

By HASSAN JAMALI, Associated Press Writer

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Hours before a visit by the American secretary of state, four explosions rocked the Saudi capital late Monday, including car bomb attacks at compounds housing Americans and other Westerners. There were dozens of injuries, a hospital official said.

 
The string of blasts occurred in quick succession, the last coming early Tuesday outside the headquarters of a joint U.S.-Saudi owned company.


"We dont know how many are injured, but we received 50 and the number is growing," an official at the National Guard Hospital in Riyadh told The Associated Press by telephone, without identifying himself. "We're very busy, we are receiving a lot of casualties."


Three Western residential compounds were attacked, an American who lives in one of the targeted areas told the AP in an e-mail exchange from Riyadh. There was extensive damage to property, he said on condition of anonymity, adding that he believed there had been some deaths.


A U.S. official traveling with Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said they had been told that there were no American casualties in the explosions.


Powell, who is currently in neighboring Jordan, will go to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday as scheduled, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. He is seeking the Saudis' help in harnessing militant groups and in promoting Palestinian reform in the latest stop on a Mideast tour that has already taken him to Israel, the West Bank and Egypt.


Initial U.S. suspicion for the attacks centered on the al-Qaida terror network, a U.S. counterterrorism official in Washington said on condition of anonymity. Intelligence from the past two weeks indicated the terrorist organization Qaida was close to launching a strike in Saudi Arabia, the official said. The State Department had advised Americans earlier his month against travel to Saudi Arabia because of increased terrorism concerns.


Saudi officials have recently announced that it foiled planned al-Qaida attacks in the oil-rich kingdom, which is the birthplace of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).


A Saudi security official told The Associated Press that a black Chevrolet Caprice sedan crashed into a residential compound in Garnata, an eastern suburb in Riyadh. The officials said the explosion caused a number of injuries.


The names of the other two Western compounds attacked were not immediately known.


Witnesses told the AP that the force of the blast in Garnata shook nearby buildings and rattled windows. Witnesses also reported hearing gunfire moments before the car exploded.


Smoke lingered over the compound as police cars and ambulances rushed in. Hundreds of anti-riot police and members of the elite National Guard converged on the scene, evacuating compound residents and sealing off the area. The compound is owned by Riyadh's deputy governor Abdullah al-Blaidh and includes several residential complexes housing mainly Westerners and non-Saudis.


The fourth blast went off at the headquarters of the Saudi Maintenance Company, also known as Siyanco, early Tuesday morning.


The company is a joint-owned venture between Frank E. Basil, Inc., of Washington, and local Saudi partners, the officials reported.


Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced last week that most of the 5,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia would leave by the end of the summer. The presence of U.S. troops has been a major irritant to the kingdom's rulers, who face strong anti-American sentiment from the population.


The American military presence in Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam, was also among the reasons used by bin Laden as his rallying call for Muslims to attack U.S. interests worldwide. The kingdom was home to 15 of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001 attack hijackers.


Last week, a senior Saudi security official said suspected terrorists were receiving orders directly from bin Laden and were planning attacks in Saudi Arabia targeting the royal family as well as American and British interests.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the prime targets were the defense minister, Prince Sultan, and his brother, the interior minister, Prince Nayef.

On Wednesday, authorities said they foiled plans by at least 19 suspected terrorists to carry out strikes and seized a large cache of weapons and explosives in the capital.

All escaped after a gunfight with police.

In remarks published Thursday, Prince Nayef said the men could be linked to bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network, which now was "weak and almost nonexistent."

Nayef said the men included 17 Saudis, an Iraqi holding Kuwaiti and Canadian citizenship, and a Yemeni. "These men have only one goal in mind: Jihad (holy war) ... They have been brainwashed," he said.

Their names and pictures were shown on state-run Saudi television Wednesday, and a reward of more than $50,000 has been offered to anyone turning in any of the suspects.

The confiscated weapons included hand grenades, five suitcases of explosives, rifles and ammunition, as well as computers, communications equipment and cash, officials said.

News of the plot came a week after an American civilian working for the Saudi Royal Navy was attacked and slightly injured in eastern Saudi Arabia.

In 1996, a truck bombing killed 19 Americans at the Khobar Towers barracks in Dhahran. In 1995, a car bomb exploded at a U.S.-run military training facility in Riyadh. Seven people died, including five American advisers to the Saudi National Guard. The Islamic Movement for Change and two smaller groups in the region claimed responsibility.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Hours before a visit by the American secretary of state, attackers shot their way into three compounds housing Westerners and Saudis and set off car bombs, officials said. At least 50 people were injured, a hospital official said.

Three Boeing Co. employees were slightly injured by flying glass, said Boeing spokesman Bob Jorgensen. They are among a group of 12 Boeing instructors training Saudi Air Force on operating Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) jets, the spokesman said in Seattle.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (May 13) - Saudi authorities linked a 19-member al-Qaida team Tuesday to carnage at three foreign compounds in the capital - multiple, simultaneous car bombings that killed at least 30 people, including eight Americans.

Nine attackers were among the dead. Another 194 people were wounded, most of them not seriously, according to Saudi officials; 40 were said to be Americans.

``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,'' President Bush said.

In a statement posted on the Saudi Press Agency Web site, the Interior Ministry described the attacks as ``suicide operations'' and said the nine bodies found in the location of the explosions were those of ``the terrorists.''

The FBI said it would send agents to join the investigation. Though no one claimed responsibility for the attacks, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit hours after the blasts, said they had ``the fingerprints of al-Qaida.''

Saudi authorities made a direct connection between the attacks and a May 6 gunfight between police and 19 al-Qaida operatives in the same part of Riyadh where the bombings occurred.

``The only information we have is that some of them were members of the group that was sought a few days ago, the 19 fellows whose pictures came out in the press,'' Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Britain and a former Saudi intelligence chief, said in London.

The 19 escaped. Among them were 17 Saudis, a Yemeni, and an Iraqi with Kuwaiti and Canadian citizenship. The interior minister, Prince Nayef, said they were believed to take orders directly from Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Authorities confiscated their cache - hand grenades, five suitcases of explosives, rifles and ammunition, as well as computers, communications equipment and cash.

At that time, Nayef said al-Qaida was ``weak and almost nonexistent.''

If Monday's bombings were the work of al-Qaida, it would mean that a terrorist organization that bore the brunt of American military might in Afghanistan is still capable of mounting coordinated attacks, even in one of the world's most tightly policed countries.

Nayef, speaking to the daily Okaz, did not rule out the possibility of more attacks.

``I don't rule out anything. We must not sit back and say this will not happen,'' he said. ``This is life, and incidents occur in every country and we are in a period of anxiety and terror acts. The kingdom is one of the countries being targeted.'' The multi-pronged, synchronized nature of Monday's bombings recalled the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

On Monday night, it took the bombers 30 seconds to a minute to get through an iron gate, drive up to the building and detonate explosives, said a senior administration official on the plane of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

After killing the sentries, the bombers pushed the button that opened the iron gate to the compound.

``They had to know where the switches were,'' said the official, suggesting the terrorists had inside information.

The al-Hamra, Jadawal and Vinnell compounds - all within 10 miles of each other in northeastern Riyadh, the last two a half-mile apart - house business executives, oil industry professionals and teachers.

Behind their 20-foot walls women need not wear enveloping robes, American and European children ride their bikes in the street, backyard barbecues are common and houses are decorated for Christmas and Halloween.

At around 11:30 p.m. Monday, witnesses reported, there was gunfire and a series of explosions.

``I thought the door was going to come off its hinges,'' said Patrick Amour, a French executive who lives a quarter-mile from al-Hamra.

Amour said he heard three explosions: One loud one from al-Hamra and others more faintly from the two other compounds. They ``went off within three seconds, less than three seconds, as if it were an echo,'' he said.

The blasts were ``absolutely terrifying,'' one Scottish survivor, John Gardiner, told the British Broadcasting Corp.

``All the doors came in, the external doors, the internal doors, all the windows, and the next thing I knew I was lying on my back in shattered glass,'' he said.

It was not clear how many cars were used. A guard at one of the housing compounds told al-Watan newspaper that seven cars exploded there, all apparently carrying suicide bombers.

Facades of five- and four- story buildings were sheared off, revealing apartment interiors, their contents swept out by the blasts.

One explosion near al-Hamra's recreation facility left a crater 20 feet across. Several cars and six or seven single-family homes within 50 yards of the blast were destroyed and debris - shredded, charred shreds of cars and furniture, melted patio chairs, uprooted palm trees - was scattered another 25 or 30 yards.

In a televised address to his people, Crown Prince Abdullah, quoting from the Quran, said ``hellfire'' awaits the attackers.

Seven Saudis were listed among the dead, including Mohammed Abdullah al-Blaihed, a son of Riyadh's deputy governor Abdullah al-Blaihed. The elder al-Blaihed owned the al-Hamra compound.

The Saudis said the others who died included two Jordanians, two Filipinos, one Lebanese and one Swiss.

Saudi Arabia has a large population of expatriate workers, including about 35,000 Americans.

Late Tuesday the State Department said eight Americans had died in the attacks. Seven American victims lived in a single, four-story building. Details on the location of the eighth victim were not given. Seventy Americans who worked for the Vinnell Corp., a Virginia company with a contract to train Saudi military and civilian officials, lived there; by chance, 50 were away on a training exercise.

There had been indications that a terrorist attack might be imminent. A counterterrorism official in Washington said information from the past two weeks indicated al-Qaida had been planning a strike in Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month, the State Department advised Americans to avoid travel to Saudi Arabia because of increased terrorism concerns, and the U.S. Embassy said it had information that terrorists were completing plans to attack American interests in the country.

In a series of e-mails Saturday and Sunday, a man who said he was the head of an al-Qaida training camp, Abu Mohammed Al-Ablaj, or Mullah Seif el Din, told the Arabic weekly Al Majalla that the group was planning an attack in the Persian Gulf using weapons and ammunition stored there.

The operative is also known as Abu Bakr, and his real name is Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, U.S. officials said. He is a Saudi who is active in al-Qaida's operations in that country.

This came after the seizure of the weapons cache in Riyadh. Nayef, the interior minister, said those weapons were to be used to attack the Saudi royal family and American and British interests.

He told al-Watan that one suspect surrendered in connection with the weapons - it was unclear when - and was being interrogated about Monday's explosions. So far he had offered ``limited information,'' Nayef said.

Saudi officials almost immediately gave the FBI team permission to participate in the investigation into the bombings.

But there has been friction between Saudi and American law enforcement in the past - in the aftermath of the 1996 Khobar Tower bombings that killed 19 U.S. servicemen, Saudi police would not allow FBI agents to interrogate suspects.

There were fears that Monday's attacks were a prelude to more violence. State Department officials said the American school in Riyadh would be closed and advised Americans to remain at home.

Britain advised its citizens not to travel to Saudi Arabia unless absolutely necessary. In a statement posted on its Web site, the Foreign Office said there remained a ``high threat'' of further strikes and warned of the possibility of chemical and biological attacks.