Saudis vow to pursue killers

RIYADH - Saudi Arabia has vowed that militants will not be allowed to destabilise it after suicide bombers killed at least 17 people at a Riyadh housing compound.

But the United States warned that al Qaeda might be planning more attacks.

The world's biggest oil exporter, battling a surge in Islamist violence, said yesterday that it would hunt down those behind the attack and, with Washington, blamed al Qaeda.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef said the kingdom would not be shaken by the attack and vowed: "We will get the perpetrators, no matter how long it takes."

The attack was "a sign of desperation and not the sign ... of someone who is going to succeed in upsetting the social balance or the political structure of the country," Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said.

The former Saudi intelligence chief said the compound of mostly expatriate workers was a soft target.

The kingdom had had successes against militants in the past six months.

"There have been many arrests, many discoveries of arms caches, munitions and explosives," he said.

Rescue teams were still searching the wreckage more than 24 hours after bombers posing as police blew up their explosives-rigged car in the Muhaya compound in the Saudi capital.

About 120 people, including 36 children, were wounded in the attack.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who arrived in Riyadh yesterday, said: "I can't say that last night's attack was the only or the last attack.

"My view is these al Qaeda terrorists - and I believe it was al Qaeda - would prefer to have many such events."

A Saudi security source in Riyadh said the attack was an "al Qaeda operation".

Supporters of the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda group have threatened to attack Saudi Arabia's royal rulers and Westerners in the kingdom.

A purported bin Laden audio tape last month vowed to strike American targets inside and outside the US.

Saudi Arabia has been under pressure to act against al Qaeda since the attacks on US cities on September 11, 2001. Most of the attackers were Saudis, and Washington blames al Qaeda.

The Riyadh blast ripped an avenue of destruction through the 200 villas in the compound, days after Western nations issued fresh terror alerts and Washington shut its missions in the kingdom.

An Interior Ministry official said seven Lebanese, four Egyptians, one Saudi, one Sudanese and four unidentified people had been killed. The dead included five children.

Four Americans of Arab origin and six Canadians were among the injured. Other injured people came from African and Asian states.

There were no details of the attackers, except that Saudi sources said there had been at least two.

- REUTERS