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Explosions Rock Western Enclaves in Saudi
Capital
By Neil MacFarquhar with Douglas
Jehl
The New York Times
Monday 12 May 2003
KUWAIT — Four separate overnight attacks involving explosions and
small-arms fire struck Western targets including residential compounds in
Riyadh, the Saudi capital, causing an undetermined number of casualties, Saudi
officials and diplomats said today.
Initial news reports put the number of injured from the
explosions, believed to have been caused by car bombs, as high as 50, but
embassy officials were unable to confirm that number.
"We can confirm that there are casualties, but we can't confirm
the numbers or the extent," said John Burgess, the counselor for public affairs
at the American Embassy in Riyadh.
Three blasts came almost simultaneously just before midnight
local time, and a fourth followed shortly afterward, Saudi officials said.
There were no official reports of deaths from the attacks. But
news reports from Saudi Arabia, citing hospital officials and residents of the
compounds, said dozens of people had been wounded and some appeared to have been
killed. The residents include American, British, Italian and other Western
citizens, as well as Saudis and citizens of other Middle Eastern countries.
The attacks were carried out just hours before Secretary of State
Colin L. Powell was due to arrive in the Saudi capital as part of a diplomatic
swing through the Middle East. American officials said tonight that they
expected Mr. Powell to travel to the kingdom as planned.
The Saudi ruling family has warned repeatedly that the failure to
promote peace in the region would inflame extremist sentiment and that the
occupation of Iraq would only serve to fuel such attacks.
The attackers struck just days after the State Department issued
an extraordinarily specific warning on May 1 that terrorists "may be in the
final phases of planning attacks" on American targets in Saudi Arabia.
"We didn't have anything particular in mind, except there were
clearly plans for something to happen or that someone was planning to do
something," said Mr. Burgess. "There was no specificity in the warnings that the
U.S. got about attacks in Saudi Arabia."
The attacks on Monday followed a botched attempt by the Saudi
security services to seize a cell the Interior Ministry accused of being linked
to the Al Qaeda network. A senior Saudi official said that 19 suspected
militant, 17 of them Saudis, sought in the raid had escaped. The suspects, the
official said, had served in Afghanistan or Chechnya and had links to radical
clerics.
A huge arms cache including 800 pounds of advanced explosives
along with hand grenades, assault rifles, ammunition, disguises and tens of
thousands of dollars in cash were seized in the raid, a Saudi official said.
Some diplomats said it was too early to draw any link between the
attacks on Monday and Al Qaeda. Other United States officials said Monday night
that initial suspicions were that Al Qaeda was behind the attack. They said the
nearly simultaneous explosions were reminiscent of the attacks by Al Qaeda on
United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
A senior government official who spoke on condition that neither
his identity nor his nationality be disclosed said Monday night, "There's been a
lot of chatter in the last six weeks involving possible attacks by Al Qaeda, and
it looks like this time they succeeded."
A Saudi newspaper editor, quoting witnesses in Riyadh, said that
at least one of the explosions, at the Hamra compound in northeast Riyadh, could
be seen from several miles away. The explosion was "huge," said the editor,
Jamal Khashoggi of Al Watan.
News agency reports from Riyadh quoted witnesses as saying the
explosions caused extensive property damage, leveling entire houses. The
witnesses said the force of the blast shook buildings and rattled windows.
Diplomats said the wounded foreigners were reportedly from the
Hamra compound. The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya satellite news channel reported that
a number of charred bodies were transferred to an area hospital.
Smoke lingered over the Hamra compound as police cars and
ambulances rushed in. Hundreds of anti-riot policemen and members of the
National Guard converged on the scene, evacuating compound residents and sealing
off the area. Saudi security forces surrounded the three compounds, according to
wire service reports from Saudi Arabia.
Officials with access to early reports suggested an element of
precision in the attacks. In each case, they said, the attackers appeared to
have shot their way into and out of the compound, and possibly used car bombs to
set off large explosions.
The official Saudi Press Agency reported three explosions, but
gave no other details.
According to Saudi officials, the main attack was at the Hamra
compound, whose residents are divided roughly equally between Westerners and
Arabs. Another attack was at a compound known as Granada, whose residents
included employees of a British aerospace company and, possibly, a British
school, the Saudi official said.
The third attack, the Saudi official said, was at the premises of
the Vinnell Corporation, an American consultancy for the Saudi National Guard,
which is headed by Crown Prince Abdullah, the kingdom's day-to-day ruler.
A senior Saudi official said of the Hamra attack: "It appears
that the explosives were in a car. Many homes were affected, and it appears that
the number of injured is high."
According to The Associated Press, the fourth blast went off
early this morning at the headquarters of the Saudi Maintenance Company, also
known as Siyanco. The company is a joint-owned venture between Frank E. Basil
Inc. of Washington, and local Saudi partners, The A.P. said.
A State Department spokeswoman, Nancy Beck, said Monday: "We are
deeply concerned about the reports of explosions in Riyadh. At this time we are
working closely with the Saudi authorities to determine the facts."
Ms. Beck said the State Department was advising Americans in
Riyadh "to remain at home until we can ascertain the facts and the nature of any
ongoing threat."
The attack against American targets in Saudi Arabia appears to
have been the third major strike by suspected militant Islamists since the
Persian Gulf war in 1991.
In November 1995, five Americans and two Indians
were killed and 60 people were wounded in an explosion in a parking area near a
military training center in Riyadh run by the United States.
In June 1996, a bomb in a fuel truck killed 19 American soldiers
and wounded nearly 400 people at an American military housing complex in the
eastern city of Khobar.
Saudi Arabia is home to Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and
Medina. The withdrawal of American troops from Saudi Arabia has been one of the
main demands of Osama bin Laden, the Qaeda leader and Saudi-born militant
accused of plotting the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
American and Saudi officials announced last month that all but a
small handful of the United States troops would be withdrawn from the kingdom by
this summer. The troops were primarily Air Force personnel who had been involved
in patrolling the skies over Iraq. Officials from both countries said the fall
of Saddam Hussein's government meant that they were no longer needed.
Officials at the Vinnell Corporation, which is based in Fairfax,
Va., did not respond to a request for comment late Monday. Frank Moore, a
spokesman for the corporation's parent company, Northrup Grumman, declined to
comment.
According to its Web site, Vinnell has provided military training
under contract to the Saudi Arabian National Guard since 1975. In 1995, Vinnell
entered into a joint venture with the Saudi government to provide supplies
training and logistics support.
The Saudi-based operation has focused on recruiting former
American service personnel. The company Web site tells prospective job
applicants that one of the positive aspects of working for Vinnell Saudi Arabia
is that applicants may "continue to do what you did in the military."
The recruitment page also emphasizes the benefits of a "tax free
income" and minimum in-country expenses. Yet it acknowledges negative aspects,
or "cons," including tours away from home, no alcohol and "few Western cultural
amenities," as well as a "harsh physical and cultural environment."
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
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