Eleven people have been confirmed dead in the suicide bomb attack on a Riyadh compound housing mostly Arab foreigners. A further 122 were wounded in the attack which is being blamed on al Qaeda.
The powerful blast ripped an avenue of destruction between 200 villas in the compound in the Saudi Arabian capital last night, just days after Western nations issued fresh terror alerts and Washington shut its missions in the kingdom, the world's biggest oil exporter.
"The residential Muhaya compound which is inhabited by various nationalities mostly Arabs, was stormed by armed gunmen and a car rigged with explosives was blown up inside the compound," the Saudi state news agency SPA said.
"Eleven people were killed from Saudi, Sudanese and Egyptian nationalities, among them four children," SPA quoted an Interior Ministry official as saying. He said 36 children were among the 122 people wounded.
The agency did not say if there were more people missing under the rubble at the compound where the powerful blast ripped an avenue of destruction. It did give any details on the fate of the attackers, estimated by security sources to be at least two.
Diplomats earlier estimated that the blast, which coincided with the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, killed between 20 and 30 people and injured up to 100 in the residential compound.
SPA said four Americans of Arab origin and six Canadians, including one naturalised, were among the injured. The rest of the wounded were from Arab states and Africa, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan, Turkey, Sri Lanka and Romania.
"The attackers got into the compound by disguising themselves as Saudi security. They wore security uniforms and drove into the compound in a vehicle similar to that used by police," a Saudi security source said.
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, in telephone calls with some Arab leaders today, pledged to hunt down terrorists. "We will uproot terrorism and put an end to it and all who stand behind it," he was quoted by SPA as saying.
The bombers shot their way into the guarded Muhaya complex and detonated at least one car packed with explosives.
"This is a crime against innocents. It is an al Qaeda operation," the security source said. Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam and of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is battling a surge in Islamist violence.
In May a triple suicide bombing at Riyadh housing compounds killed 35, including nine Americans, and was blamed on al Qaeda.