RIYADH, Nov 9: At least 17 people, including five children, were killed and 122 injured in a suicide bombing at a residential compound in the early hours of Sunday, state television said. Residents of the compound were of various nationalities, mostly Arab expatriates.
Among the dead were Saudis and Egyptian nationals, besides Indian and Sudanese security guards of the Al-Mohayya residential compound, situated some 5km from the diplomatic quarters on the outskirts of Riyadh. The final casualty figure was still being compiled when this report was filed.
The wounded included Bangladeshis, Egyptians, Eritreans, Ethiopians, Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Jordanians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Rumanians, Saudis, Sri Lankans, Sudanese, Syrians and Turks, as well as Americans and Canadians, most of them of Arab descent.
No Pakistani national was killed or injured in the incident. Three to four Pakistani families lived at the compound but they were out of their residences at the time of attack.
“No Pakistani was injured in the blasts,” Community Welfare Attache at the Pakistani mission in Riyadh Pervez Junejo told Dawn on Sunday afternoon.
A Pakistani national was seen searching for his passport in the rubble of the devastated structure later in the day.
The bombers shot their way into the Al-Mohayya compound and detonated at least one car packed with explosives. Most residents of the complex were families of middle-class professionals from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.
The interior ministry’s breakdown of the injured included four Arab Americans and six Canadians, five of whom are of Arab origin, adds AFP.
Lebanese topped the list of wounded at 53, followed by 17 Egyptians and eight Jordanians. Thirty-six of the wounded are children.
An Egyptian mother, father and two children perished in the blast and their bodies were found on Sunday under the debris, Cairo’s embassy told AFP.
The 40-year-old father was named as engineer Ali Ragheb, whose children Omar and Ahmed were aged eight and four respectively.
Seventeen Egyptians were hurt, including nine children, the mission said.
Four Lebanese, including a woman and two children, also died in the blast, Beirut’s embassy said here as the toll rose during the day.
The embassy said SPA had mistakenly left the Lebanese off the death toll.
A high-ranking Saudi official at the site had earlier announced that one Sudanese and an Indian were also killed at the Al-Mohayya complex in the Wadi Laban suburb, located behind the Al-Yamama royal palace.
Saudi officials blamed the Al Qaeda network for the attack.
SECURITY MEASURES: The incident has sent a wave of fear among the western nationals living in the kingdom, resumes Rashid Husain. The US embassy in Riyadh has advised the embassy staffers, employees and their dependents to restrict their movements and stay confined to diplomatic quarters in Riyadh.
The British embassy has slightly updated its Nov 6 advisory, asking its citizens to be extra vigilant in view of the attack on the Al-Mohayya residential compound.
According to Nick Abbott, press officer at the British Embassy in Riyadh, there were three British citizens in the area at the time of attack. All of them were safe, Nick Abbott told this correspondent.
Once the situation stabilizes, the embassy staff will meet the British community in the kingdom to discuss, deliberate and then decide its course of action in the wake of the Al-Mohayya bombings, he added.
When asked whether the British citizens here would be persuaded to send their families back home, Mr Abbott said it was too early to assess the reaction of the British citizens at this moment.
Many western expatriates preferred to stay at their homes on Sunday. At a major car company office in Riyadh, three of its western employees did not turn up for work. “They are simply horrified at the turn of events,” a colleague of these employees commented.
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