Saudi death toll rises
The number killed in the weekend’s suicide bomb attack in Saudi Arabia has risen to 17, according to figures from the country’s interior ministry on Sunday night.
A suicide car-bomb – suspected to be the work of terror network al Qaeda – ripped through a housing estate in the capital Riyadh on Saturday.
At least 17 people were killed, including five children, and 122 injured. The target housed mostly foreign Arabs.
Early death toll estimates varied widely. Official reports placed the figure at 11 deaths, before six more bodies were pulled from the rubble.
The British Foreign Office has warned against all but essential travel to Saudi Arabia, fearing further terror attacks.
The Saudi Ambassador to the UK, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, said that the attack carried all the signs of al Qaeda.
Speaking on Channel Four News on Sunday, he said: ‘From the modus operandi and the target itself, and the way that the attack was carried out, it pretty much seems to be al Qaeda.
‘I believe this is a clear sign of their desperation – the fact that they have been hunted down so effectively by the authorities in the kingdom, with many arrests and many discoveries of arms caches.’
The attack followed international terror alerts from the US government.
