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Saudis probe daring Qaeda attack on US mission
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-07 20:39 JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia tried Tuesday
to discover how militants penetrated the elaborate defenses of a U.S. consulate
in what al Qaeda said was a reprisal for last month's U.S. assault on Falluja in
Iraq.
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| Smoke billows from the US
consulate in Jeddah. Gunmen suspected of links to Al-Qaeda stormed
the US consulate in the Saudi port of Jeddah, triggering a bloody
three-hour siege that left five staff and three attackers
dead.[Xinhua] | | At
least nine people died in Monday's attack in Jeddah, the first against a Western
diplomatic mission and first big strike in six months in the world's top oil
exporter by militants bent on driving Westerners from the birthplace of Islam.
"We have to find out exactly what gave them the ability to get inside and get
through the gate," Interior Ministry security spokesman Brigadier-General
Mansour Turki told Reuters. "The measures taken were thought to be enough to
prevent this."
A statement in the name of al Qaeda's Saudi wing said the "squadron of martyr
Abu Annas al-Shami breached the bastion of the Crusaders" in what it called "the
blessed Falluja attack."
U.S.-led forces have blasted their way into Falluja to hunt for insurgents
and foreign fighters, including those loyal to America's top enemy in Iraq, al
Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Relatives of Shami, Zarqawi's spiritual mentor, say he was killed in an
earlier U.S. strike in Iraq.
SECURITY FLAWS
The brazen attack against a symbol of the U.S. government in Jeddah showed
that Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network still poses a threat despite
an 18-month-old crackdown in which leading militants have been killed or
captured.
It also highlighted flaws in U.S. and Saudi security measures to protect the
mission from al Qaeda, which has repeatedly vowed to strike at U.S. interests in
the kingdom.
Officials say the assailants followed an official consulate car into the
complex, firing guns and hurling grenades to force entry. No U.S. diplomats were
killed but the gunmen burned the U.S. flag and set fire to buildings.
An Interior Ministry statement named three of the attackers killed in the
raid, but none was on a list of 26 top wanted al Qaeda militants. It said the
authorities were trying to identify a fourth dead militant and would not reveal
the name of a fifth militant who was captured after he was wounded.
"The attackers took a chance while a consular car was going in, so the door
was open," Turki said. "They threw grenades at the guards at the gate and
stormed through. They had no access inside the consulate itself as they were
kept to the perimeter."
U.S. officials said the militants must have kept the consulate under
surveillance for some time before the attack.
Officials said five consulate staff -- a Yemeni, a Sudanese, a Filipino, a
Pakistani and a Sri Lankan -- were also killed.
Adel al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince
Abdullah, said the gunmen called an emergency line to say they had taken
hostages. Some of the wounded staff also said the militants had tried to use
them as human shields.
The consulate stayed shut Tuesday and the U.S. flag flew at half-mast. An
armored vehicle guarded the gate while Saudi forces manned sentry points around
the vast walled compound.
U.S. oil prices edged higher for the second day in a row, partly on the
Jeddah violence and partly due to calls within producers' cartel OPEC to cut
excess output.
Saudi Arabia vowed to eradicate terrorists. President Bush linked them
to insurgents in Iraq.
Saudi Arabia, birthplace of most of the hijackers in the Sept. 2001 attacks
on U.S. cities, has been battling a wave of al Qaeda violence since May 2003.
Around 170 people, including foreigners, security forces and militants have been
killed.
In the kingdom's last big attack, militants struck at oil companies and a
housing compound in the eastern city of Khobar in May. At least 22 foreigners
and seven security men died.
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