Saudi Arabia's confrontation with terrorists intensified yesterday after suspected al-Qaeda bombers exploded a car in a Riyadh residential housing compound on Saturday night, killing at least 17 people, including five children.
Diplomats earlier said the final death toll could be higher. The Interior Ministry had said 122 people were wounded, including 36 children.
Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler, vowed that the government would not be intimidated by the violence. "We will uproot terrorism and put an end to it and all who stand behind it," he said in comments carried by the official Saudi news agency.
US President George W. Bush called Crown Prince Abdullah yesterday and vowed to stand "with Saudi Arabia in the war against terrorism", a White House official said.
"The president expressed his condolences to the people of Saudi Arabia and to the families of those killed," the official said.
The US Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Richard Armitage, said he believed the attack was the work of "al-Qaeda terrorists" and that more attacks could be on the way.
"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," he said in Riyadh where he arrived from Iraq yesterday.
Western embassies urged their nationals to remain vigilant and restrict their movement to and inside the kingdom. Britain and Canada advised citizens to defer non-essential travel to Saudi Arabia.
The attack, which diplomats said had devastated more than a dozen houses where mostly Arab expatriates lived, was strikingly similar to the simultaneous bombings in three Western residential compounds in May, which killed 35 people and provoked the Saudi authorities to launch their first major crackdown against al-Qaeda.
Rescue workers were still searching through the rubble at the 200-unit Muhaya complex yesterday but the Saudi Press Agency said the victims accounted for so far included Saudis and nationals from Egypt, Lebanon and Sudan.
The bombing drew condemnation from Western and Arab capitals but it risked driving more expatriates away from the kingdom. Saudi Arabia relies on the 6 million expatriate workforce in key areas of its economy, including the oil sector.
Saudis who monitor websites used by jihadis, or proponents of a holy war, say al-Qaeda's main strategy to undermine the regime is still to target the foreigners on whom the oil-rich economy heavily depends.
The massive explosion devastated Muhaya on a busy night during the holy month of Ramadan and a day after the US embassy in Riyadh warned that terrorists had moved from the planning to the operational stage of attacks. The blast also followed clashes last week between suspected terrorists and security forces in Riyadh and the discovery of a plot to launch an attack in the holy city of Mecca.
Some reports from Riyadh said the attackers had disguised themselves as security officials and were driving a car that looked like a police vehicle. They apparently clashed with the guards at the compound, killing some of them, and then stormed in. It was unclear yesterday whether the bombing was a suicide attack or whether the perpetrators had escaped.
The bomb site was a few kilometres away from the city's diplomatic quarter. Diplomats said several mansions belonging to senior members of the ruling al-Saud family were also nearby.
The compound has in the past housed members of the US army, but the US embassy in Riyadh yesterday said that only a "handful" of Americans now lived there. Some were treated for wounds.