Bin Laden Strikes again - in Riyadh (Debka-- detailed description of attacks)

Debka ^ | May 13, 2003 | Debka

[FairOpinion]

After midnight Monday, May 12, Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network struck the United States and Saudi Arabia with devastating effect. In a multiple, multi-layered terrorist operation plotted as carefully as any military raid, small suicide squads hit three gated and guarded estates housing westerners in Riyadh and an American-Saudi partnership office - hours before US secretary of state Colin Powell flew in for a visit. The perpetrators displayed high skills in planning, intelligence, mobility and execution.

The elite locations populated by foreign expatriates including many Americans that came under attack were Garnata, Cordoba and Ishbiliya. All sheltered behind concrete walls, electronic detectors and automatic sensors, their two or three gates guarded by armed men who opened cement road barriers only to vehicles whose drivers presented keys with the correct coded electronic signal. Drivers of unidentified cars had to step out and approach the guards who searched them and their vehicles.

The terrorists overcame this formidable security system by having several small teams strike at different points in each estate with ferocious fire and explosive power. While one group killed the guards and smashed the gates, one or more Mercedes packed with explosives and suicide terrorists drove round the other side and rammed the estates’ perimeter walls. The next team drove into the estates through the hole. Once in, vehicles loaded with cans of gasoline as well as explosives blasted high-rise buildings, killing many of their residents and leveling entire streets. Another group of terrorists rode into the damaged compounds and massacred survivors by spraying the interiors of still standing buildings with automatic fire, hand grenades and fuel bombs. Some witnesses heard the firing going on 10 minutes after the explosions. When their ammunition ran out, the killers detonated bomb belts.

No definitive official information has been released thus far on casualties. DEBKAfile’s counter-terror experts estimate a very high toll running to scores. After the first-wave assaults, few could have survived the fierce heat and vacuum generated in their apartments by the second-wave gasoline blasts which tore the façades off their buildings and sucked them out.

This method was a replay of the al Qaeda tactic first seen seven years ago when a truck bomb crashed into the Khobar Towers housing the US military personnel (with families) securing the oil fields of Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Provinces. The unofficial toll then was put at 19 American servicemen killed and 500 injured - some very gravely. To this day, no American or Saudi official has openly attributed that atrocity to al Qaeda. However, it is hard to miss the re-appearance in Riyadh of the same expertise and operational features as were exhibited in Khobar.

The latest outrages tie in closely with the shootout between Saudi security and a large group of terrorists that took place in the Saudi capital less than a week ago on May 7. Saudi intelligence sources admit this was the fourth battle Saudi security men had fought with terrorists in Riyadh in recent weeks, but the first three were never officially released. Even in reporting the last clash, the Saudi ministry of interior focused mainly on the large cache seized of explosives, weapons and ammunition, although it could not avoid publicizing the names and photos of the 19 gunmen who got away, 17 of them Saudi nationals. So acute is the security crisis in the Saudi capital that for the first time ever, its police published an appeal for public help in capturing the wanted men, including even a cash reward.

Subsequent leaks from Saudi sources showed the incident to have been more dangerous and audacious than first reported: an attempt by Al Qaeda to assassinate the pro-American Saudi defense minister Prince Sultan, third in the line of succession to the throne, and his brother, Interior Minister Prince Naif, who is also in command of internal security in the kingdom. DEBKAfile has not confirmed this account, but has discovered that the large-scale battle in Riyadh on May 7 was not the start of the episode but its outcome. The assailants did indeed mount an assassination attempt against “a leading Saudi figure” the day before on May 6. The battle developed after the plot was aborted and the assassins were in flight from pursuit.

By then, neither the Saudi nor American security authorities could overlook the fact that Riyadh was teeming with many hundreds of al Qaeda operatives preparing for a fresh offensive against US and Saudi targets. Oil fields and facilities, airports and airliners are now believed to be in their sights.

According to DEBKAfile’s terror experts, this fresh offensive has not been orchestrated by a new al Qaeda leadership as has been claimed; Bin Laden and his veteran lieutenant, the Egyptian Dr. Ayman Zuwahri are still firmly in the saddle. Our sources concur that Monday night’s strikes in Riyadh were the opening shots of an extensive terror campaign. Recruits discovered in the fundamentalist network’s ranks in the last two weeks include Muslim-Americans, Muslim-Canadians and Saudi army troops who have gone over to al Qaeda. Clearly, the terrorist organization’s command capabilities – far from declining, show improved operational skills, undiminished by the capture of key al Qaeda figures in recent months, especially in Pakistan. The intelligence obtained from those captives did not forewarn American counter-terror agencies against al Qaeda’s coming plans.

According to the latest information reaching us, the strike teams in Riyadh also numbered Iraqi and Yemeni terrorists.

[FairOpinion]

An extremely well organized attack.

[EggsAckley]

I find it hard to believe that the Saudis aren't able to round up known terrorists and Al'Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. I even find it hard to believe that the Saudis didn't know about this in advance. Don't trust 'em.

[SunStar]

We don't trust them. That is why we are sending the FBI in to investigate, to work with their "police".

[jwfiv]

I like what the Vice-President said this morning...to the effect that there is negotiating with the enemy, they must be elimnated.

The only good cockroach is a dead cockroach.

[Terpfen]

Extremely well-organized... as compared to 9/11. I'm sorry, but this latest attack does NOT impress me. They had to resort to going all-out on some gated communities. Compared to flying jumbo jets into skyscrapers and government buildings, this seems kind of--oh, I don't know--desperate. Low profile. Pathetic. Not to demean those who died (terrorists excepted), but if this is all al Qaeda can do, we're winning even more than most of us suspect.

[Rocky]

DEBKAfile’s counter-terror experts

Even in a serious story, there is sometimes an unintentional bit of humor. And I think I found it here.

[wgeorge2001]

"...Riyadh were the opening shots of an extensive terror campaign. Recruits discovered in the fundamentalist network’s ranks in the last two weeks include Muslim-Americans, Muslim-Canadians and Saudi army troops who have gone over to al Qaeda."

Smoke them out,hunt them down and kill every one of them, the old military firing squads will do. Keep the money hungry liberals and trial lawyers from defending and releasing murderers onto the streets to murder again.

[Monti Cello]

The article claims this is an opening volley and 'not all they can do'.

This is not a 9/11 clearly but it's on par with the Clinton-era attacks, and I think it deserves a harsh response and deserves to be taken seriously. 'Scores' of dead is not something to be sanguine about.

But it is really going to piss off Kim jong il!

[Terpfen]

Oh, I take it very seriously. I see it as a death throe of an organization we've systematically dismantled over a year and a half. Of course the proper response is necessary, but I'm not going to overreact and say "Oh no, al Qaeda launched an attack--all is lost!"

I expect to hear new reports of Predators blowing up terrorist wagons from 10,000 feet now; I don't expect to see another 9/11-scale attack.

[pawdoggie]

While I also do not trust or like Abdullah, the most "anti-American" member of the Royal Family, by now the Al-Sauds must surely realize that they can no longer pursue a policy of alternately ignoring and buying off Al-Qaeda. The fact that these operatives struck so openly, and with automatic weapons, proves that the Saudi Government needs to reassert control quickly, or they'll go the way of the Pahlevi family in Iran.

[FairOpinion]

"I don't expect to see another 9/11-scale attack. "
---

Hopefully not, but AQ may well be preparing for one. God forbid, another attack occurs, that still doesn't mean our "War on Terror" is a failure, we achieved tremendous successes in rounding up at least half of AQ's leadership, shutting down their funding and having prevented another attack so far, but remember, we can work hard and prevent 99 attacks, but one can slip through.

I think we foiled over a hundred attacks worldwide, which was announced and how many others.

[EvilOverlord]

Let's get some special forces in there and start assassinating Al Queda by the score. It should be no problem to transfer some of our guys from Iraq.

[FairOpinion]

I am sure a lot of that is already going on, maybe not in Saudi, but elsewhere, but it's not publicized for obvious reasons. The idiot liberals in this country would want to have a trial with Johnny Cochran as defense attorney for each Al Qaeda murderous terrorist.

I also read, in addition to having "disposed" of about half of the AQ leadership, that about 3000 AQ are also "not a threat anymore".

[section9]

Extremely well-organized... as compared to 9/11. I'm sorry, but this latest attack does NOT impress me. They had to resort to going all-out on some gated communities. Compared to flying jumbo jets into skyscrapers and government buildings, this seems kind of--oh, I don't know--desperate. Low profile. Pathetic.

You know I have to agree with you. This didn't impress me, either. Why didn't they do a big event in London to get back at the Blair Government? Hmmm? That would have been a much better recruiting tool.

My thinking is that this is the best they can do right now. Best to be cautious, of course, but they could achieve so much more by striking directly at us or the Brits.

A Saudi strike, just as we're pulling people out anyway? This has to strike the average Saudi as gratuitous killing. And it was done on their soil, to embarrass the Kingdom.

This could be the thing that drives the Royal Family to the conclusion that the internal terror threat is real and must be resolutely crushed, human rights niceties notwithstanding.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[EvilOverlord]

I am sure a lot of that is already going on, maybe not in Saudi, but elsewhere, but it's not publicized for obvious reasons. The idiot liberals in this country would want to have a trial with Johnny Cochran as defense attorney for each Al Qaeda murderous terrorist.

One of the liberal talk show hosts on the radio out here (I think his name is Gene Burns, but don't quote me on that) is against 'pre-emptive strikes' to such an extent that he doesn't even think going after Al Queda is the right thing to do, because most of Al Queda isn't attacking us. The only guys we have the right to go after for the 9-11 attacks are the guys who actually hijacked the airplanes, and they're already dead. Therefore, the US should have done nothing in response.

I really don't understand these guys.

[McGavin999]

It's time for the Al Saud family to do a little "family" housecleaning. There are members of that family who are actively seeking to overthrow the government with plans on taking over the new Islamic Republic themselves. That family is split in half and they need to stop trying to cover it up and get serious.

Personally, I think some serious introspection has been going on since last July and I think they've figured out just who stands where (I wish I did). Now all we have to do is figure out who's going to win.

[FairOpinion]

Sounds like the "Clinton credo".

Let's just sit here while they murder us all. At the exchange rate of 19 AQ killing 3000 Americans, 1900 AQ can kill about 300,000 Americans, but let's just sit and wait until it happens, right?

I think liberals hate the US as much as AQ does, and would actually like to see it destroyed, what they don't seem to get, is that they personally may be among the victims.