DAMMAM: The rampage by a large group of Saudi teenagers in Alkhobar last Wednesday, destroying restaurants, showrooms and shops, caused losses worth millions of riyals, press reports said quoting owners of businesses.

Witnesses said the rioting during the National Day celebrations started after one youth pointed at a fast-food chain, saying, “It’s a supporter of Israel.”

The youths then broke the windows in the restaurant before ransacking nearby showrooms and shops.

Al-Watan Arabic daily said the youths targeted mostly shops of international brands.

Employees and guests at Pizza Hut on Alkhobar Corniche said the youths attacked the fast-food chain, broke its windows and furniture and took bottles of beverage from its refrigerator.

“They came close to the cashier but ran away after seeing police,” an employee told the paper. “After an hour customers started coming back but the youths returned when they saw police had left the scene.”

One employee wondered why the Saudi teenagers took the path of destruction on the day they should have been celebrating an important day for the country. He said the restaurant had suffered big losses as a result of the attack. “We have to close the shop now for repairs and this adds to the losses,” he said.

Starbucks, next to Pizza Hut, was also attacked and its windows were broken.

The coffee shop had to use wooden slabs to cover the window openings.

Dr. Ashraf Shafik, supervisor of a pharmacy that was destroyed, said the youths had taken more than SR20,000 from the cash register.

“I was not able to stop them because they came in a large group,” he said, adding that some of them carried light weapons.

The employee of a showroom that sells expensive gifts and precious stones said his shop had suffered losses of SR4 million as a result of the rampage; the youths, he said, ran off with much of his merchandise.

The owner of a showroom for eyeglasses that came under attack said the youths took away about 1,000 pairs of glasses worth more than SR400,000.

Security sources put the number of youths arrested for the rampage at about 100. They are now in a juvenile correction center in Dammam.

Some of them told Al-Watan that they were innocent and had nothing to with the incidents.

“Police arrested us for being in the area where the rampage took place. We had gone to Alkhobar Corniche to celebrate our holidays,” one of them said. Most of them had no knowledge of the National Day or its significance.

The teenagers urged authorities to provide them with places to spend their time and enjoy their hobbies. They said the clubs in Dammam had closed their doors to them. “I would not have come here all the way from Qassim to spend the Eid if I knew that this would happen,” one youth told the paper.