Blasts Rock Riyadh

Three explosions rocked a residential compound in the Saudi capital Saturday night, wounding more than 80 people and killing at least two in what the government described as a suicide car bomb attack.

The midnight blasts came after gunmen broke into the upscale compound of about 200 villas and exchanged fire with security guards, a Saudi government official said.

An Interior Ministry official told The Associated Press that the attack was by a suicide car bomber. He said 86 people were wounded and two killed, both security guards.

However, immediately after the explosion, there were widely conflicting reports of the number of dead. An official at a Riyadh hospital said dozens of people were killed, but that apparently was wrong.

Diplomats and officials said most of the residents of the compound's 200 villas were Lebanese. Some Saudis also live there, plus a few German, French and Italian families.

A U.S. Embassy spokesperson said all embassy personnel were accounted for.

The attack occurred a day after the U.S. Embassy issued a warning that terror attacks could be imminent in the tense Gulf kingdom, and American diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia were closed Saturday as a result.

A May attack on western residential compounds in Riyadh killed 35 people, including the nine attackers. It was blamed on the al Qaeda terror network, and Saudi authorities have arrested hundreds of suspected militants throughout the country since then.

Diplomats reported one big explosion about midnight, followed by two smaller ones 15 seconds apart. The streets were crowded with late night crowds because of Ramadan, the holy month when Muslims fast during the day.

Dozens of police cars and ambulances raced toward the direction of the blasts, sirens wailing, and helicopters hovered overhead. Traffic was tied up across the city.

A woman living in the compound told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that "there is lot of blood" at the scene of the explosions.

"I am extremely terrified; I am really scared. I felt it was an earthquake," the woman said without identifying herself.

"Lots of houses are damaged, windows shattered and police echoing with sirens of ambulances," she said. "The ambulances were picking up lots of people. It looks like there are lots of people who died."

The Saudi official said the explosions took place in the Muhaya compound. He said the attackers exchanged fire with the guards and he said there were apparently three explosions.

He said most of the wounded were believed to be children because their parents were out shopping during Ramadan. Most of the residents are Arabs and few Westerners live in the area.

State Department spokeswoman Amanda Batt in Washington said initial reports indicated there were explosions and gunfire in Riyadh. She referred to explosions at three compounds that housed Westerners but acknowledged the compounds could have been all in the same complex.

The Saudi-owned, Dubai-based MBC TV said Riyadh hospitals have been put on high alert to expect casualties from the explosion.

Hanadi al-Ghandaki, manager of the targeted compound, told al-Arabiya that about 100 people were wounded, mostly children "because most adults were outside the compound at that time." She did not elaborate.

Al-Ghandaki said the residential facility has 200 residential villas occupied by Arab tenants, plus four others occupied by one French family, two German families and a British family.

Rabie Hadeka, a resident inside the targeted compound, told the Al-Arabiya television network that "about 20 to 30 people have been killed and 50 to 60 injured."

She told Al-Arabiya that "shattered glass was spread everywhere after we heard three very strong explosions."

An Arab diplomat, who declined to be identified further, told the AP that he heard that 31 people were injured, 27 lightly and four seriously. He made no comment about deaths.

Police said the explosions were three miles from one of the entrances to the Saudi capital's diplomatic quarter.

"We heard a very strong explosion and we saw the fire," Bassem al-Hourani, who said he was a resident at the targeted compound, told Al-Arabiya in a telephone interview.

"I heard screams of the children and women. I don't know what happened to my friends if anybody was injured," he said. "All the glass in my house were shattered."

Almost all the foreign embassies in Riyadh — including the U.S. Embassy — and most diplomats' homes are inside the diplomatic quarter, an isolated neighborhood whose entrances are guarded. But there are several residential compounds housing Western business people relatively near the diplomatic quarter.

A western diplomat said he got a call from a friend who reported seeing smoke rising from a building on the other side of the diplomatic quarter near an area where the palaces of the royal family's senior princes are located.

The city's main palaces, including those of senior princes and the king's sprawling Riyadh residence, are just outside the east side of the diplomatic quarter. Each of the palaces is behind a high wall, with automatic gates for cars to drive through, and guards.

A U.S. embassy spokesperson, asked by The Associated Press about how long the diplomatic missions would remain closed, said: "We will take it day by day." The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

The embassy said Americans in the kingdom should be "vigilant when in any area that is perceived to be American or Western."

"The situation has been dangerous, perilous, for Americans in Saudi Arabia," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters in Washington, particularly since the May 12 attacks against Western residential compounds in Riyadh that killed 35 people, including the nine attackers.

Boucher said U.S. and Saudi officials have been working on cracking down on terrorists operating inside the Gulf kingdom, but added that "the process is not complete yet, so there remains a degree of danger there."