Saudi officials link al-Qaida to attacks

Riyadh - Saudi authorities linked the al-Qaida terror group to the attacks on foreign housing compounds that killed at least 29 people and warned that more terror attacks could lie ahead.

After the deaths of eight Americans in the suicide bombing attacks, the United States ordered most of its nonessential diplomats and family members to leave Saudi Arabia and dispatched FBI investigators to Riyadh to help with the investigation.

The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh was closed for security reasons Wednesday.

President Bush spoke to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah on Tuesday night, pledging U.S. support for the kingdom's fight against terrorism, Saudi media reported Wednesday.

A U.S. diplomat said Saudi civil defense workers had finished sifting through the debris in their effort to find survivors and bodies at the bomb sites, but added the embassy was still "trying to figure out how many Americans have died."

Investigators will return to the debris to recover evidence, figure out what explosives and detonators were used and try to track down who purchased them.

The State Department in Washington put the American death toll at eight. The Saudis said 29 people died overall, including seven Saudis and nine of the assailants who drove to three compounds and a U.S.-Saudi company office and detonated their explosives-laden vehicles.

Another 194 people were wounded, most not seriously, and 40 of these are believed to be Americans, according to Saudi officials.

Earlier reports put the death toll at 30. It was not exactly clear why it went down, but one of the dead Americans may have had duel citizenship with the Philippines, which reported that two of its citizens were killed.

"These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate, and the United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice," Bush.

The Saudi government says the attacks are connected to 19 al-Qaida operatives who engaged in a gunfight with police in Riyadh on May 6.

"Some of (the attackers) were members of the group that was sought a few days ago, the 19 fellows whose pictures came out in the press," Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Britain and a former Saudi intelligence chief, said in London.

The 19 escaped. Among them were 17 Saudis, a Yemeni, and an Iraqi with Kuwaiti and Canadian citizenship. One of the 19 later turned himself in to Saudi authorities and was being questioned.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef said the 19 are believed to take orders directly from Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), al-Qaida's leader and the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The prince was also quoted as saying he did not rule out the possibility of more attacks.

"This is life, and incidents occur in every country and we are in a period of anxiety and terror acts. The kingdom is one of the countries being targeted," he told the Saudi newspaper Okaz.

The target compounds — al-Hamra, Jadawal and Vinnell — were within 10 miles of each other in northeastern Riyadh and are home to Western business executives, oil industry professionals and teachers.

Saudi Arabia has a large population of expatriate workers, including about 35,000 Americans.

The eight deaths are the highest American death toll in terror attacks since Sept. 11. Seven Americans were among the more than 200 people killed last October in twin bombings in Bali, Indonesia.

Around 11:30 p.m. Monday, witnesses at the sites reported gunfire and a series of explosions.

It took the bombers less than a minute to get through an iron gate, drive up to the building and detonate the explosives, according to a U.S. official accompanying U.S. Secretary Colin Powell, who visited Saudi Arabia just hours after the attack.

After killing the sentries, the bombers pushed the button that opened the iron gate to the compound.

"They had to know where the switches were," said the official, suggesting the terrorists had inside information.

The blasts were "absolutely terrifying," one Scottish survivor, John Gardiner, told the British Broadcasting Corp.

"All the doors came in, the external doors, the internal doors, all the windows, and the next thing I knew I was lying on my back in shattered glass," he said.

While police vehicles patrolled the walls of the compounds and kept reporters out, residents walked through a moonscape of shattered glass and crumbled concrete to salvage their belongings and pack up to move.

"I hope those people who were responsible for these acts face the full weight of the law, and if they are men of religion, that when they depart this world that they are punished in the next world, too," said al-Hamra resident Graham Bull, a teacher at the British School who suffered minor injuries.  -- Associated Press

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