SAUDI BLAST

CNN reports,

A loud explosion rocked an affluent residential neighborhood in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday, one day after the U.S. Embassy announced it would temporarily close over concerns of rising terror threats.

Raid Qusti, Arab News bureau chief for the Saudi capital, said he heard the blast, then ambulance and police sirens. He added that witnesses reported hearing gunfire before the explosion.

Witnesses reported plumes of smoke rising near the capital’s diplomatic quarter, Qusti said.

The U.S. Embassy and consulates in Saudi Arabia said Friday that they would be closed Saturday to at least Monday because of concerns that terrorists were planning an attack in the kingdom.

An advisory released Friday by the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh said the embassy “continues to receive credible information that terrorists in Saudi Arabia have moved from the planning to operational phase of planned attacks in the kingdom.”

Before the explosion Saturday, the British Embassy in Bahrain warned its personnel of the threat of a terror attack. Bahrain is an island nation in the Persian Gulf, east of Saudi Arabia.

(Hat tip: Laurence Simon)

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. BigFire says:

    For once, our intelligence got the warning ahead of schedule, and act on it.

    As for the Saudi government, over reacting?