Al-Qaida Fingerprints Seen in Saudi Attack

Saudi authorities on Tuesday linked a 19-member al-Qaida team to carnage at three foreign compounds in the Saudi capital — multiple, simultaneous car bombings that killed at least 29 people, including seven Americans. Nine attackers were among the dead. Another 194 people were wounded, most of them not seriously, according to Saudi officials; 40 were said to be Americans. “These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate, and the United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice,” President Bush said. The FBI said it would send agents to join the investigation. Though no one claimed responsibility for the attacks, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit hours after the blasts, said they had “the fingerprints of al-Qaida.” Saudi authorities made a direct connection between the attacks and a May 6 gunfight between police and 19 al-Qaida operatives in the same part of Riyadh where the bombings occurred. “The only information we have is that some of them were members of the group that was sought a few days ago, the 19 fellows whose pictures came out in the press,” Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Britain and a former Saudi intelligence chief, said in London. Full Story