KHOBAR BOMBING - Carried out by Palestinian dentist from Riyadh

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'Palestinian man carried out Khobar bombing in October' RIYADH (AP) — A Palestinian man carried out the bombing last month in eastern Saudi Arabia, in which he and an American were killed, the Saudi Interior Ministry said Wednesday.

The official Saudi Press Agency, quoting an interior ministry official, identified the man as Ayman Ben Mohammad Abu Zinad, 30, and said he worked as a dentist at a private clinic in the capital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi authorities had until Wednesday said they could not identify the second man killed in the Oct. 6 blast.

Wednesday's statement was also the first acknowledgment that the second man killed had been responsible for the blast.

Saudi investigators were trying to determine the motive and whether Abu Zinad intended to kill himself in the explosion. If so, it would be the first time since a series of bombings targeting foreigners in shopping areas in the kingdom began a year ago that a suicide attack was used.

The blast came a day before the United States launched a bombing campaign against Afghanistan, accused of harbouring the No. 1 suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington and New York. Anti-American sentiment had been high in Saudi Arabia even before the bombing.

A few days after the Khobar bombing, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef said he could not rule out a possible link between the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the explosion.

The unnamed interior ministry official said Wednesday that Abu Zinad, whose full name was Ayman Ben Mohammad Amin Said Abu Zinad, had arrived two days before the bombing at his family's house in the eastern city of Dammam, close to Khobar, which he regularly visited on the Thursday-Friday weekends.

Investigators found at his parents home bomb-making material along with several personal documents, including two valid Indian passports in his name, the agency said.

He also had Egyptian travel documents, not unusual for Palestinians, many of whom do not have passports. The ministry official said he had studied in India.

Four men — an American, a Briton and two Filipinos — also were injured in the blast on a crowded commercial street in the city of Khobar.

Police have made no arrests in the attack. The explosion previously was reported to have been caused by a parcel bomb thrown by a pedestrian.

Diplomats and other Saudi sources have said earlier that the Oct. 6 blast and the similar previous explosions may have been part of a gang war between smugglers of alcohol, which is strictly forbidden in Saudi Arabia but not difficult to obtain.

Three British men have been arrested in Saudi Arabia in connection with some of the previous bombings and confessed on state-run TV, but they did not give a motive.

In 1996, 19 US servicemen were killed when members of the dissident Saudi Hizbollah group bombed the Khobar Towers complex in the city.

US prosecutors have indicted 14 people in that case.

That attack prompted about 4,500 US military personnel in the country to move to Prince Sultan Air Base in the Saudi desert.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001


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