SAUDI ARABIA

Independent: Riyadh: a new front against US

America's fortunes in the Gulf were in free-fall yesterday after a suicide bombing in Riyadh late on Saturday that appeared to be aimed at undermining the Saudi monarchy, the United States' key ally in the region.

No one had claimed responsibility by last night, but the shadow of the fugitive Saudi national Osama bin Laden hangs over the outrage. At least 17 people, many of them Arab expatriates, were killed and 120 others, 36 of them children, were injured in a massive car bomb attack on a residential compound in Riyadh.