RIYADH, 10 November 2003 — Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, yesterday vowed to root out terrorists and their supporters. He made the comment while talking to Arab leaders who called him to condemn Saturday’s terrorist attacks in Riyadh.
“We will intensify our campaign to clamp down on terrorists,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted the crown prince as saying.
Interior Minister Prince Naif also reaffirmed the Kingdom’s determination to hunt down those linked to the suicide attack at a housing compound here. “We will get the perpetrators no matter how long it takes,” he said while inspecting the devastation at the Al-Muhaya Compound.
“The people who were behind this must stop these heinous acts or give themselves up. It would be better if they gave themselves up because sooner or later we are going to catch them,” Prince Naif said.
Prince Naif said the perpetrators were acting on the orders of others but did not elaborate.
“Let everyone here and abroad know that this country will not be shaken, because we derive our strength from God,” he said.
The Shoura Council also denounced the terrorist attacks.
“The Al-Muhaya Compound... was stormed by armed gunmen and a car rigged with explosives was blown up inside the compound,” an Interior Ministry spokesman said. He added that one vehicle was used in the attack, an American sedan. Reports earlier said the gunmen were disguised as police officers.
Saudi Television put the death toll at 17, including five children. Prince Naif said that of the 200 injured, “most have been discharged from hospitals, except 25 to 35 people still receiving medical treatment.”
The Interior Ministry spokesman said those killed in the blast were Saudi, Sudanese and Egyptian. They included four children, he added. Four Americans of Arab origin and six Canadians, including one naturalized, were among the injured, he said. The rest of the wounded were from Arab states and Africa, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Turkey, Sri Lanka and Romania.
Residents of the Al-Muhaya compound spent most of the day retrieving what they could from the remains of their homes. Many walked around the compound with their bodies bandaged and clothing bloodied searching for remnants of what used to be “a fairly good life,” in the words of one 17-year-old Lebanese.
“I have lived here for two years and considered this to be a safe compound because 95 percent of the residents are Arabs. There are only four non-Arab families that I know of that live here. Now I don’t know where in Saudi Arabia I can feel safe. I want to leave,” he said.
Describing the events of the early morning, a 16-year-old Lebanese told Arab News: “I was sleeping when my mother came to wake me up. I immediately heard the shooting and told my mother to call father and tell him not to come to the compound because we didn’t know what was going to happen to us. Right when she was calling him the bombs went off.
“We live a good distance from where the blast happened, but the door flew off the hinges and the windows shattered. Some of the broken glass flew into my forehead. After the blast, the shooting continued for 10 minutes. Then 15 or 20 seconds later, I heard the big bomb, and then everything went crazy. Then the shooting started again for 10 more minutes. Some of the units were completely demolished and on fire. The people living there didn’t stand a chance.”
By early afternoon, cranes had moved in to sort through the rubble and to remove the wreckage. Filipino rescue workers employed by the municipality lay exhausted just meters away from two exploded vehicles that carried the death and destruction into the lives of these men, women and children.
One rescue worker told Arab News: “I have been here since eight o’clock this morning and have helped recover at least eight bodies, most of them children. Many of the remains were torn to pieces and decapitated. I just don’t want to see any more dead babies.”
The Al-Muhaya Compound, reportedly owned by Abdullah Al-Muhaya, a Saudi Army general, was used by Boeing until approximately seven years ago. Since then, the compound has housed mostly Arab expatriate employees of various companies. The compound is located in a valley atop which are several royal palaces which showed signs of minor exterior damage despite being up to one kilometer away.
The houses and vehicles closest to the compound’s only entrance were riddled with hundreds of bullet holes, a sign of a gunbattle between National Guard soldiers and the terrorists. Approximately 150 meters down a small two-lane road, past the compound’s main entrance, there is now a five-meter wide crater that is three meters deep. Two-story buildings within 50 meters of the crater have been reduced to a pile of broken cement and twisted metal.
Arab News learned that five hospitals received injured people from Saturday night’s blast: King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSHRC), Medical Specialist Hospital, Kingdom Hospital, King Khaled University Hospital, and Riyadh Central Hospital.
Hamoud Al-Otaibi, a media officer at KFSHCR, said the hospital received 41 cases from the explosion that occurred in the compound.
At the Medical Specialist Hospital, a Lebanese national was undergoing surgery. One female relative was weeping in the aisle wearing a hospital gown.
