SAUDI ARABIA

News: Blasts 'commando operations'

THE huge suicide bomb attacks on three expatriate housing compounds in the Saudi capital were executed like true commando operations, a high-ranking US official said after US Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Saudi Arabia.

In one of the attacks, suicide bombers took "thirty seconds to a minute" to knock out the security post at the compound housing the US-based Vinnell Corporation's employees, the official accompanying Powell said.

From within a Ford sedan, the attackers started by killing or wounding security guards sitting in a vehicle equipped with a machine gun, then seized control of the guard post to allow a booby-trapped Dodge Ram truck through the compound's gate.