A rchive Date
[ 13-05-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Saudi Arabia ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/05/12/85808-ap.html
Bombs rock Riyadh
Tue, May 13, 2003
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CP) - Attackers shot their way into three housing compounds in synchronized strikes in the Saudi capital and then set off multiple suicide car bombs, killing dozens of people.
An hour after saying that the death toll was 91, a U.S. State Department official said the actual figure was much closer to the Saudi estimate of 29. According to the Saudi breakdown, the dead included seven Americans, seven Saudis, two Jordanians, two Filipinos, one Lebanese and one Swiss.
The official Saudi Press Agency quoted the unidentified Saudi official as saying the attackers also wounded 194, most of them slightly.
Canadian Ambassador Melvyn MacDonald, who called the bombings acts "to be deplored," said one Canadian was seriously injured but expected to survive. An undisclosed number of other Canadians suffered minor injuries.
A Foreign Affairs official in Ottawa later issued an updated report saying two Canadians had suffered serious but not life threatening injuries. Three others suffered minor injuries.
"In situations of this nature, things evolve and nationalities of people in hospital often come out later," department spokesman Reynald Doiron said, adding that figures on Canadian casualties could still change.
Only one of the three compounds had Canadian residents. MacDonald, who toured that compound, described the destruction as extensive and said every building sustained at least some damage.
Such "indiscriminate use of force," especially against families and children was "inexcusable," he said.
Visiting U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the co-ordinated strike, which occurred at about 11:30 p.m. Monday, had "the earmarks of al-Qaida."
"Terrorism strikes anywhere, everyone," Powell said. "It is a threat to the entire civilized world."
Witnesses reported hearing gunfire moments before one of the cars exploded.
The force of the blast ripped through multi-storey apartments buildings and single-family houses alike. Facades of four- and five-storey buildings were sheared off. Heaps of rubble and blocks of upended concrete surrounded twisted steel bars and knocked downed palm trees. Burned-out hulks that had been cars were still in their parking spots; upended furniture and debris littered a pool deck.
One survivor, John Gardiner from Kinghorn, Scotland, told the British Broadcasting Corp. the blasts were "absolutely terrifying."
"All the doors came in, the external doors, the internal doors, all the windows, and the next think I knew I was lying on my back in shattered glass," he said.
Another survivor, British telecommunications executive John Crossley, was knocked out by the force of a blast and suffered cuts from glass.
Crossley, speaking to the Los Angeles Times by telephone, said a group of men in a car shot their way into the compound where he lived. He said guards gave chase through the streets until the attackers' car exploded.
"The fact that they (the terrorists) have attacked three compounds in a co-ordinated way sends a message to the western community that we are not safe here," Crossley said. "It's like they're saying, 'We can get you any time, anywhere.' "
There was no claim of responsibility. But if the al-Qaida connection is confirmed, it would show that Osama bin Laden's network is still capable of mounting co-ordinated attacks, even in one of the world's most tightly policed countries.
Before being uprooted in the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the group carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States and the 1998 simultaneous car bombings outside American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 230 people.
The Riyadh attack came as the United States is pulling out most of the 5,000 troops it had based in Saudi Arabia. U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that most of the troops, whose presence fuelled anti-American sentiment in the desert kingdom, would be gone by the end of the summer.
Bin Laden has repeatedly railed against the presence of what he calls "infidel" troops on Muslim holy land.
Powell, who arrived Tuesday on a previously scheduled visit despite the attacks, said at least 10 Americans were among the dead. He later said it was possible the death toll was lower.
A Saudi Interior Ministry official said seven Americans were among a total of 20 people killed, along with seven Saudis, two Jordanians, two Filipinos, one Lebanese and one Swiss, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.
In addition, nine charred bodies believed to be those of the suicide attackers were found, the official said.
The attacks late Monday were followed by a smaller bombing Tuesday near the headquarters of a Saudi-U.S. company. No casualties were reported in that attack.
A guard at one of the housing compounds in the northeastern section of the city was quoted by the Saudi paper al-Watan as saying that seven cars exploded there, all apparently carrying suicide bombers. At least three bodies could be seen lying on the ground at the compound Tuesday morning.
Police vehicles, lights flashing, patrolled the walls of the compounds and kept reporters out. The Al-Hamra compound, which suffered one of the worst attacks, was hidden behind six-metre walls studded with surveillance cameras.
Most of the homes in such compounds are large, single-family villas. Behind high walls, westerners can escape Saudi restrictions such as the requirement that women outside the home wear enveloping robes. Residents tend to work as corporate executives, oil industry professionals and teachers.
Two of the complexes hit Monday were named after cities in Spain conquered by the Muslim empire in the 13th century. Al-Hamra is Arabic for Alhambra and Eshbiliya is Seville. The third target, Vinnel, is the name of the U.S. company whose workers make up most of its residents. The company does contracting work for the Saudi national guard.
Saudi Arabia has a large population of expatriate workers, including about 35,000 Americans.
Powell was greeted on his arrival by Prince Saud, the Saudi foreign minister, who expressed his sorrow and vowed to co-operate with the United States in fighting terrorism.
"It is no consolation, but these things happen everywhere," Saud said. "It should increase our efforts and should make us not hesitate to take whatever measures that are needed to oppose these people, who know only hate, only killing."
The Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayef, told local newspapers the assailants were believed to be linked to the May 6 discovery of a large weapons cache.
The Saudi government was seeking 19 suspects in that case - including 17 Saudis, a Yemeni, and an Iraqi with Kuwaiti and Canadian citizenship - that it believed were receiving orders directly from bin Laden. The government said the group had been planning to use the seized weapons to attack the Saudi royal family as well as American and British interests.
Prince Nayef said one of the 19 people sought in the cache case handed himself in - it was unclear when - and was being interrogated for information about Monday's explosions. So far he had offered "limited information," Nayef said.
A previously unknown Saudi group, the Mujahedeen in the Arabian Peninsula, had linked itself to the cache found May 6 and over the weekend vowed on an Internet site to strike American targets worldwide. It was not clear whether the explosions in Riyadh were linked to the group.
Americans have been frequent targets in Saudi Arabia.
Last month, 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.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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