'Many injured' As Bombs Hit
Western Targets In Riyadh
By Paul Peachey
Independent
13 May 2003
A series of bomb attacks on Western targets in Saudi Arabia killed a number of people and injured at least 50 last night, hours before Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, was due to visit the country.A car packed with explosives crashed into a residential compound housing Westerners in the capital Riyadh, where a joint US and Saudi-owned company was also attacked.
A Briton in one compound spoke of widespread damage with homes closest to one of the four blasts "smashed to pieces".
A Western diplomat said at least three residential areas were hit in the attacks. "We are not sure that the explosions were caused by car bombs. There were also unconfirmed reports of gunfire," he said.
A security official said that a car filled with explosives crashed into a residential compound in Garnata, an eastern suburb. The compound, owned by Abdullah Al-Blaidh, deputy governor of Riyadh includes several residential complexes and houses mainly Westerners.
Police cars, ambulances and hundreds of anti-riot police were seen converging on the scene, evacuating people from the area and sealing it off.
One hospital in the capital said the number of injured in the blast was expected to rise. "We don't know how many are injured, but we received 50 and the number is still growing," said an official at the National Guard Hospital. "We are very busy, we are receiving a lot of casualties."
Witnesses said the force of the blast shook nearby buildings and rattled windows.
Nick Holt-Kentwell, who is British, said: "I was asleep, and we heard this massive explosion. At first of course you think its thunder and everybody comes out of their houses and then we realise after a short time that it was actually an explosion on another compound which was very close to us.
"With the Iraq situation in the last few months all the Westerners have very much been aware, we've been taking the advice of the embassy not to go into the shopping centres
"But generally speaking there has been a greater police presence in Riyadh and we've noticed that going to work there have been a lot more police cars."
The blasts followed a warning issued by the US State Department earlier this month advising Americans to avoid travel to Saudi Arabia because of terrorism concerns.
In recent years there have been a series of attacks on foreigners, mainly Britons and Americans, amid rising anti-Western sentiment in the kingdom.
Mr Powell, currently in Jordan, was scheduled to go to Saudi Arabia today for talks with the country's leaders and to ask for their help in controlling militant groups and promoting Palestinian reform.
A US official travelling with Mr Powell said last night he was planning to travel to Saudi Arabia as scheduled.
Last week, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, announced that most of the 5,000 US troops in Saudi Arabia would leave by the end of the summer. Their presence 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 among the reasons given by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden for his hatred of the United States.
He used it often as his rallying call for Muslims to attack American interests worldwide. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers involved in the 11 September attacks were Saudis.
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.
On 6 May, Saudi security forces seized a large cache of weapons and explosives in Riyadh as they were searching for a number of suspected terrorists, an official said.
The official said at least 19 men – including 17 Saudis, an Iraqi holding both Kuwaiti and Canadian citizenship and a Yemeni – were being sought in connection with the plots.
In 1996, a truck bombing killed 19 Americans at the Khobar Towers barracks in Dhahran.
Another car bombing in November 1995 at a American-run military training facility in Riyadh killed seven people, including five American military and civilian advisers to the Saudi National Guard.