Terrorists
Target Riyadh
Raid Qusti � Javid
Hassan, Arab News
RIYADH,
22 April 2004 - At least four people,
including two security officers, were
killed and 148 injured when a powerful
car bomb devastated buildings of special
security forces and the traffic
department here yesterday. The vehicle
exploded at a protective barrier outside
the buildings, destroying dozens of
other vehicles, damaging shops and
property in a building across the road,
and shattering windows over a wide area.
The blast came six days after a terror
alert from the US Embassy.
"Four
people - two security men, a civilian
employee and an 11-year old Syrian girl
- were killed," Saudi television
reported, quoting an Interior Ministry
official.
"The
number of wounded reached 148, including
38 expatriates. Of those 103 have left
hospital and 45 remain there, three
among them in critical condition,"
the ministry said.
Saudi
leaders quickly vowed to root out the
terrorists, who struck at the security
forces buildings for the first time
since a series of bombings began in
Riyadh last year. "These criminal
acts perpetrated by a deviant minority
will be dealt with firmly until they are
rooted out," Crown Prince Abdullah,
deputy premier and commander of the
National Guard, told Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat during a telephone
conversation.
Interior
Minister Prince Naif said the attack
would not undermine the Kingdom's police
force. "Their morale is incredibly
high," the minister told reporters
after visiting the injured policemen at
King Faisal Specialist Hospital in the
capital. "Attacking security forces
shows the bankruptcy of the terror
cells, which we are determined to track
down," said Prince Naif.
Prince
Naif confirmed that a large number of
civilians had been injured in the blast.
Arab News learned that the King Faisal
Specialist Hospital alone had received
32 injured. Seven of them were admitted
to the intensive care unit. The injured
included the directors of traffic and
operations departments.
Prince
Naif said the Kingdom's security forces
were successful in preventing "tens
of terrorist attacks". He added
that security forces were ready to
confront any attacks.
Asked
whether he believed there were any
foreign forces behind the blast, the
minister said: "We cannot say
that." Such attacks could happen in
any country, he added.
He urged
Saudis to cooperate with security forces
in the fight against terror. "Every
citizen is a member of the security
force," he said. He also urged
terrorists to surrender for their own
good.
Prince
Naif warned those who support
terrorists, especially through satellite
channels and other media, saying they
would be dealt with sternly. "They
will be arrested, interrogated and
handed over to justice," he added.
Asked whether he believed the bombing
was a revenge attack on police for
tracking down militants, the prince
said: "Maybe. We cannot rule out
that possibility."
An
injured police officer told the minister
that the attack would only increase
their resolve to finish off the
criminals.
Prince
Naif said security forces were
continuing their efforts to hunt down
suspected terrorists. "We'll get
them and hand them over to
justice," he added.
Riyadh
Governor Prince Salman said he
considered the bomb attack on the
security buildings as an attack on Saudi
people as a whole. "Police are part
and parcel of our society." He
dismissed suggestions that the police
had foiled other terrorist attacks
yesterday. "Not at all," he
stated.
The
governor reiterated the government's
resolve to fight religious extremism.
"We
should stand united in the fight against
these crimes," he told Saudis.
Earlier
in a brief statement, an Interior
Ministry official said the driver of a
car blew up the vehicle at 2 p.m.
yesterday after being stopped from going
into the headquarters of the traffic
department.
"When
the guards dealt with it as the
situation dictates, the driver blew up
the vehicle 30 meters from the
gate," the Saudi Press Agency
quoted the official as saying.
Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat and Lebanese
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri condemned
the attack.
Saudi
television said children were among the
injured but also showed uniformed
security force personnel in hospital.
"I was in the office when the blast
happened," said one bloodied and
bruised man before breaking down in
tears. Fires raged long after the blast,
which left a deep crater and a street
carpeted in debris from the shattered
building. Dozens of blackened and
twisted cars smoldered for hours and
glass shards and concrete debris covered
the tarmac.
Local
people living nearby were shocked.
"What can I say? We were sitting
minding our own business in our homes
when we felt the force of the explosion.
We don't know what happened. Houses fell
on our children and women," one man
said. "What sin have we committed?
These people don't fear God."
It was
the sixth attempt to carry out car bomb
attacks in the capital within a week.
Security sources said five vehicles
packed with explosives had been found
and defused in recent days. "We
succeeded in preventing five like this
but this one got through," an
Interior Ministry source said.
The
traffic department is one of several
administrative buildings located on Al-Washm
Street. Others include those charged
with combating drugs and detecting
explosives.
Witnesses
told Arab News that body parts littered
the ground as thick smoke poured from
the front of the six-story building.
Ambulance workers recovered them.
Police
quickly moved in to hold back horrified
onlookers and sealed off the Al-Washm
area as the scale of the carnage
emerged. A fleet of ambulances, sirens
wailing, ferried off casualties.
The
force of the blast ripped off the facade
of the glass and steel security
structure, leaving gutted offices open
to the sky. Bars and sheets of twisted
metal were scattered over the ground,
forming a battle scene of rare violence.
The
bomber was charred beyond recognition.
"Cars parked near the site had
their windows shattered or cracked as
were the windows of apartments in nearby
buildings," one witness said.
The
impact was also felt on share prices.
The Tadawul share index dropped 2.9
percent.
The
police were deployed to guard the King
Saud Street branch of the Al Rajhi
Banking and Investment Corporation where
its ATM's glass door was damaged. A
thick pall of smoke blanketed the area
cordoned off for rescue operations.
Civil defense helicopters hovered
overhead guiding rescue operations.
The
injured, many of them from the security
personnel, were admitted to the Riyadh
Military Hospital, the King Abdul Aziz
Medical City and the Central Hospital at
Shumaisy.
Terrified
residents of buildings in the area
flooded out onto the streets. In some
cases the police had to force back the
crowds to allow ambulances, patrol cars
and fire engines access to the blast
site.
Speaking
to Arab News, Adnan Jaber, a senior
journalist of Al-Watan who lives in the
area, said: "I was attending a
seminar on investment opportunities for
Australian businessmen at the Riyadh
Chamber of Commerce & Industry when
I heard the explosion.
He
continued: "My youngest son, Ahmed,
was playing near a window. He had a
lucky escape because his mother called
him just as the window where he was
sitting was shattered by the
impact." He added that all the
window panes were broken and the
explosion shook the building.
The
explosion occurred during a visit to
Riyadh by US Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage, on a tour of Gulf
states. A US Embassy spokesperson said
there were no Americans among the
casualties.
Last
week, Washington ordered non-essential
diplomats out of the Gulf state and
warned Americans they should leave,
citing reports of possible attacks on US
and Western interests.
There
was no immediate claim of responsibility
but Saudi Arabia is waging a war on
militants linked with the Al-Qaeda
network of Osama Bin Laden, responsible
for a spate of terror attacks in the
Kingdom over the past months.
A series
of suicide bombings targeting
residential compounds in the capital in
May and November last year killed 52
people, including several expatriates.
The attacks were blamed on Al-Qaeda.
Saudi
security forces discovered on Monday two
cars laden with explosives, which were
ready to be used in terror attacks in
the capital, a security source said.
The
discovery of the two vehicles, found in
Arrumhiyah village 90 kilometers east of
Riyadh, brought to five the number of
car-bombs seized in Saudi Arabia within
the past week.
After
the two cars were found, security
forces, backed by helicopters, combed
the region searching for armed men who
had managed to flee in a jeep.
An
Interior Ministry official announced on
Sunday the arrest of eight suspects
linked to recent deadly clashes between
militants and security forces and the
booby-trapping of cars.
Security
forces had also seized three vehicles
packed with thousands of kilograms of
explosives, including one they had been
searching for since February.
[Reprinted
with permission of Arab
News.]
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