Riyadh Latest 91 Dead and 194 Injured

Al-Qaeda confirms attack

At least 91 people have been killed and 194 injured in Saudi Arabia by a series of four suicide bombing attacks against western housing estates early on Tuesday morning on the eve of the visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Al-Qaeda confirmed that it was behind the attack.

Al-Qaeda confirmed responsibility for the attack in an e-mail sent by Abu Mohamed Al Ablaj, to Saudi weekly newspaper Al Majalб, printed in London on Fridays. The message stated that Al-Qaeda had planned this attack for a long time, having built up great supplies of explosives in the area.

Security services had been predicting some sort of attack for some time, since the Saudi authorities were tipped off and recently arrested 19 men. However, the four attacks on residential areas housing western civilians and troops, which happened almost simultaneously just before midnight, prove that the area is becoming increasingly dangerous, especially after the recent illegal attack on Iraq by the USA and UK. The attack comes two weeks after the USA declared that it will pull its troops out of the kingdom, a move followed by the UK.

It is believed that 12 US citizens and 5 Britons are among the dead, most of whom are Saudis. Coming one day after the terrorist attack in Chechnya, it proves that the international coalition against terror must continue to operate, but in a spirit of collaboration and equality, based upon a multilateral approach, not unilateral initiatives which run against the will of the international community. Now is the time to pull together, not to fall apart.

This can only be done if there is a single forum of debate and law-making, respected integrally by all, without exception. This institution is the United Nations Organisation and the forum of debate is its Security Council, recently despised, disrespected and violated by Washington and London.