Posted on 05/12/2003 8:38:05 PM PDT by dixie sass
Blasts hit Saudi capital
There has been a series of explosions in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh aimed at housing for western nationals in the city, Saudi officials said.
According to diplomatic sources, blasts went off at three different locations, sending fireballs and smoke into the night sky.
The BBC's Suleiman Nemr in Riyadh said that at least three people - a Saudi national, a Lebanese citizen and a westerner - had been killed at one residential compound where a car bomb exploded.
There has been no official word on the number of casualties, but a spokesman for a Riyadh hospital said that at least 50 people had been injured.
The attacks have occurred just hours before United States Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to arrive in the country on Tuesday as part of a Middle East tour.
Saudi security forces are responding to the attacks and have been asked to take the appropriate measures to protect all other sites in the kingdom where Americans reside
US embassy statement Mr Powell is still planning to visit Riyadh where he is trying to gain Arab support for a new US-backed peace plan to end the Palestinian and Israeli unrest.
Mr Powell is due to arrive in Riyadh from Amman at 1130 (0830 GMT) to hold talks with Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz.
Gunfire
In one attack gunmen driving a black Chevrolet Caprice sedan are reported to have shot their way into a residential compound in Granada, an eastern suburb in the Saudi Arabian capital.
Security officials said the car, packed with explosives, crashed through the gates of the compound and was then detonated.
The force of the explosion shook nearby buildings and windows, witnesses said.
Ambulances raced to the scene of the car bomb "We heard a huge noise and we saw many ambulances coming and gathering victims," one witness said.
An official at Riyadh's National Guard Hospital told the Associated Press that at least 50 people had been injured in the car bomb attack.
"We don't know how many are injured, but we received 50 and the number is growing," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. "We're very busy, we are receiving a lot of casualties."
A number of homes near the blast were almost totally destroyed, leaving only the concrete superstructure, one Scottish resident who witnessed the blasts told the BBC's World Today programme.
Security warnings
American residents have been advised by the US embassy in Riyadh to stay at home and "away from windows and doors".
Powell is pushing for peace in the region "Saudi security forces are responding to the attacks and have been asked to take the appropriate measures to protect all other sites in the kingdom where Americans reside," an embassy statement said.
On 1 May the US state department warned American citizens against non-essential travel to Saudi Arabia, citing intelligence that terrorist groups may be in the "final phases" of planning attacks against the American community there.
In recent months there have been a number of attacks on Western targets in the conservative Arab kingdom, including a string of shooting attacks against employees of western defence contractors in Saudi Arabia.
On 6 May Saudi police uncovered a "large" cache of weapons in Riyadh, including hundreds of kilos of explosives, after a shootout with a number of suspected terrorists.
The suspects, identified as 17 Saudi citizens, a Yemeni and an Iraqi bearing Canadian and Kuwaiti passports, eluded capture and are still being sought in connection with terror.
According to Interior Ministry officials the men are believed to be connected to a man who received bomb-making training in Afghanistan, where the al-Qaeda militant network was once based.
Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and 15 of the 19 men suspected of carrying out the 11 September suicide attacks on New York and Washington.
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