- RIYADH (Reuters) - Suicide
bombers injured more than 40 Americans and other nationals and probably
killed others in devastating attacks on Westerners' compounds in Riyadh
on Monday night, a Saudi minister and the U.S. ambassador said.
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- The blasts came hours before Secretary of State Colin
Powell was due in the Saudi Arabian capital on Tuesday.
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- The bombs seemed to be the latest anti-Western attacks
in the kingdom that is the birthplace of Islam -- and also of Osama bin
Laden, head of the al Qaeda network blamed for the September 11, 2001,
attacks on the United States.
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- "The three explosions that occurred in eastern Riyadh
were suicide bombings," Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef told
Al Riyadh daily, the newspaper's Web Site reported.
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- "They were set off by cars stuffed with explosives
that were driven into the targeted compounds," he said.
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- U.S. ambassador Robert W. Jordan told CNN television
from Riyadh that more than 40 Americans had been wounded at the heavily
guarded compounds.
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- "We have somewhat over 40 Americans hospitalized
at this stage," he said. He thought it was likely there would be more
casualties and that there were a "fair number of other nationals"
injured and perhaps killed.
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- Daylight television showed shattered houses and apartment
blocks and the twisted and burned out wreckage of cars in the streets.
Pictures shortly after the explosions showed ambulances and police cars
with flashing lights racing past the compounds as smoke drifted overhead.
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- In Washington, the State Department said Powell would
travel to Riyadh as scheduled despite the bombings. He was due in Riyadh
at 11:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. EDT) to see Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz
on the latest leg of a Middle East tour.
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- Powell spent the night in Jordan as part of a drive to
promote a peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.
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- U.S. OFFICIAL SAYS FOUR BLASTS
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- A U.S. official who declined to be named said there had
been at least four bombs. Witnesses earlier said they had heard three blasts,
which sent fire balls into the night sky above the Gharnata, Ishbiliya
and Cordoba compounds.
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- The official also included a housing compound for a joint
Western-Saudi company in his count.
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- A European resident of one of the targeted compounds,
identified as Nick, said the explosion occurred shortly before midnight
and was so powerful it blasted out windows and doors.
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- "We were sleeping when we were woken up by the sound
of gunfire," he told the Arab News newspaper. "Moments later,
a loud explosion was heard followed by another bigger explosion. I have
a five-month-old baby. She was sleeping next to the window when the blast
took place."
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- One Australian woman, named as Helen, told CNN television
trucks had rammed into gates at her walled and heavily guarded villa compound
and exploded after an exchange of gunfire, shaking her sturdy villa like
a cardboard box.
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- On May 1, the United States renewed a warning for citizens
to avoid travel to Saudi Arabia. One official said intelligence agencies
had credible information about a possible al Qaeda plot to strike American
targets there. The same day, a gunman wounded a U.S. civilian at a naval
base in Saudi Arabia.
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- POLICE HUNT MILITANTS
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- On May 7 police said they were hunting 19 suspected militants,
mainly Saudis, believed to be hiding in Riyadh after a shoot-out with security
forces the previous day. The Interior Ministry said police had also found
a huge cache of explosives, hand grenades, ammunition and machineguns.
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- U.S.-Saudi ties came under strain after the September
11 attacks, apparently carried out mainly by Saudis loyal to bin Laden's
al Qaeda group, one of whose key demands is for U.S. forces to leave the
home of Islam's holiest sites.
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- Many ordinary Saudis, angry with perceived U.S. bias
toward Israel, are also irked by the presence of Western troops.
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- Suspected militant Islamists have twice launched major
attacks on U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia since the 1991 Gulf War to eject
Iraqi occupation forces from Kuwait.
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- In 1995, five Americans and two Indians were killed and
60 people were injured in an explosion in a car park near a U.S.-run military
training center in Riyadh.
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- In 1996, a bomb in a fuel truck killed 19 U.S. soldiers
and wounded nearly 400 people at a U.S. military housing complex in the
eastern city of Khobar.
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- Last February, a British defense contractor was killed
by a Saudi suspected of al Qaeda links.
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- Two weeks ago the United States said it was removing
virtually all forces from the kingdom as they were no longer needed after
the war in Iraq toppled Saddam Hussein.
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- Saudi Arabia has charged 90 Saudis with belonging to
al Qaeda and is interrogating another 250.
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