Seven killed in attack on US consulate in Jeddah

A gunfight raged in the heavily guarded US consulate in Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah today after explosions at the gates.

Militants armed with explosives and machine guns today attacked the heavily guarded US consulate in the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah, sparking a gunbattle that left seven people dead and several injured.

Three attackers were killed and two were injured and arrested, the Saudi Interior Ministry announced. Saudi security officials also said four of their forces were killed. The ministry statement didn't mention hostages, though Saudi security officials said some had been taken.

The statement by an Interior Ministry spokesman, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, said a "stray bunch" – a reference to Islamic militants - threw explosives at the gate of the consulate then entered. Saudi security forces engaged the attackers, "killing three aggressors, and two were captured after they were hit."

The Saudi statement said "the situation was brought under control." It gave no further details.

Saudi security forces also said they believed four of the attackers had seized an unknown number of hostages inside the building amid a gunbattle. Area residents spoke of seeing Saudi forces enter the consulate shortly before a fierce gunbattle was heard inside. A short time later, the gunfire stopped.

A senior Saudi official in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the attackers took several hostages, mostly Sudanese and Indian, but the Americans were evacuated.

During the hostage standoff, the official said, there were some negotiations, but Saudi security forces stormed the attackers with their hostages when the attackers began making threats. There was a brief firefight that ended with the three being killed and two captured, the Saudi official said.

Security forces freed the hostages, the official said.

In Riyadh, the US Embassy spokeswoman said two local staff members were injured, but all American staff were safe.

"We have accounted for all Americans on the compound in Jiddah and none of them are being held hostage.' said US Embassy spokeswoman Carol Kalin, in Riyadh. "We have a local work force that was on duty and we are still in the process of accounting for (them)."

Kalin said it was unclear if any of the US Marine guards inside the consulate were involved in the gunbattle.

As a precaution, she said, the US Embassy in Riyadh and consulate in Dhahran were closed to the public.

Saudi security officials said two security guards at the gate of consulate were wounded, one of them seriously, after the attackers opened fire on them before entering the mission. It wasn't clear if those were the two consulate employees mentioned by Kalin.

A Saudi health official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several people were injured and taken to a hospital.

Witnesses initially said they saw the attackers' car explode outside the consulate, located in the city's heart near the Red Sea coastline, but it was not immediatley clear if a car bomb had been used, or if the attackers had thrown explosives after driving the car up to the consulate.

According to Saudi security officials, the assailants shot at security guards at the consulate's gate, set off an explosion - using either a car bomb or grenades - and got into the compound. There, they said Saudi security guards engaged the attackers, but that the attackers managed to seize hostages.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But Saudi officials have blamed al-Qaida operatives for the string of attacks that have hit the kingdom in the past two years.

Saudi security forces, including snipers, could be seen on the rooftops of buildings around the consulate compound. Thick smoke rose from the compound and helicopters hovered overhead.

Arab television stations showed pictures of Saudi military and security officials and ambulances milling around outside the compound's high walls as smoke continued to drift into the air. Saudi Arabia's Al-Ekhbaria TV reported that a school next door to the consulate was evacuated and that the facade of a hospital facing the consulate was damaged.

Al-Arabiya satellite television reported the attackers were believed to be carrying machine guns and hand grenades that were thought to have started a fire inside the compound. The fire was extinguished by helicopter, the report said.

"The magnitude of this assault on the consulate has taken all Jiddah residents by surprise," said Khaled al-Maeena, the editor of Arab News located in Jiddah who saw the smoke rising from the compound.

The consulate is located in the heart of the city, just a half-mile from the city's Red Sea coastal road.

The building - like all US diplomatic buildings and other Western compounds in Saudi Arabia - has been heavily fortified and guarded since last year's series of bombings against targets housing foreigners.

The attack was the latest in a series of attacks against Westerners since 2003, when car bombs targeted three compounds housing foreign workers in Riyadh, killing 35 people, including nine suicide bombers. Later that year, a suicide car bomb killed 17 people and wounded 122 at a compound for foreign workers in Riyadh.

Last May, 22 people were killed, including 19 foreigners, by militants who took over a resort complex in Khobar and held hostages for 25 hours. In another attack that month, militants stormed offices of Houston-based ABB Lummus Global Inc. in Yanbu, killing six Westerners and a Saudi. All four attackers in Yanbu died in a shootout after an hour-long police chase in which they dragged the body of an American from the bumper of their car.

In June, militants in Riyadh, the capital, kidnapped and beheaded Paul M. Johnson Jr., an engineer for a US defense company.