ALKHOBAR, 3 May — A parcel bomb blew up in the face of an American doctor here yesterday, seriously wounding him.
Gary Hatch, a physiotherapist working with the Saad Medical Center, received serious injuries to his face, hands and the left knee when he opened the package, which he thought contained a video tape, at his clinic. The explosion happened at 8:30 a.m., the Saudi Press Agency quoted a top police officer in the Eastern Province as saying.
Hatch, 40, who has been working in the Kingdom for the last six years, has been admitted to the Aramco Hospital in Dhahran. Doctors described his condition as serious, but stable.
The US Embassy said Hatch was “gravely injured.” “The embassy understands that the bomb was a package about the size of a video which was addressed to the American and was delivered by a courier service,” said the embassy in Riyadh in a security advisory to its citizens in Saudi Arabia.
Police have cordoned off the hospital area and security authorities have began investigations, said Maj. Gen. Nasser Al-Nasser, director of police.
Alkhobar was the scene of an anti-US blast in 1996 when a lorry charged with explosives blew up outside US barracks killing 19 members of the US Air Force. That attack, in which almost 500 people were wounded, is still under investigation.
A series of blasts in the Kingdom late last year, which left one Briton dead and four other people wounded, have been linked to a multimillion-dollar alcohol smuggling business.
On Nov. 17, Briton Christopher Rodway, 47, was killed and his wife, Jane, 50, slightly injured when their car was blown up, in what police say appeared to be a booby trap, in central Riyadh.
Less than a week later, two Britons and an Irish woman were wounded, two just slightly, when their car exploded on Nov. 22 in Riyadh.
Several suspects, including a US national, a Canadian, two Britons and a Belgian, are being held in the inquiry into the two attacks. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
