US President George W Bush today vowed to find those responsible for the bombings in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh which are thought to have killed at least 29 people, including American citizens.
He said the blasts were the work of "killers whose only faith is hate" andvowed that "they will learn the meaning of American justice".
A preliminary death toll of 91 compiled by the US State Department for the suicide bomb attacks on three expatriate housing compounds in the Saudi Arabian capital is likely to be too high, US officials have said.
The officials said the exact toll was still uncertain but said that the final figure would likely be closer to the toll of 29 dead given earlier by the Saudi Interior Ministry.
"We're hearing now that the 91 figure is high," one official said. "The Saudi figure is a good ballpark number for the moment, but as they go through the rubble we'll be in a better position to know."
Another US official said the Saudi number was almost certainly still too low for the amount of damage done to the complexes but cautioned that all the figures were "very preliminary."
The al-Qaeda network has implied it carried out the attack in a message received today by a Saudi weekly newspaper.
The group had "been planning major operations for a long time in the Gulf where it had stocked large amounts of arms and explosives," al-Qaeda operative Abu Mohamed al-Ablaj wrote in an e-mail to Al-Majallah, which is published from London.
A Saudi Interior Ministry official said attackers using cars packed with explosives in "suicide operations" killed seven Americans, seven Saudis, two Jordanians, two Filipinos, one Lebanese and one Swiss at the three compounds.
In addition, nine charred bodies believed to be those of the suicide attackers were found, the official said.
The explosions came hours before the US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell was due in the city.
Those killed died when explosions hit the Al-Hamra residential compound in eastern Riyadh that is home mainly to Americans and other Westerners.
An Irish witness, Mr Malachy Harkin, told RTÉ Radio this morning he saw a number of people firing from the back of a four-wheel drive before a large explosion rocked his home.
"Every window and every door both internal and external of the house blew in and that was the same for upwards of 150 houses and apartments in the compound," Mr Harkin said.
Mr Powell arrived in Riyadh as scheduled this morning to meet Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz on the latest leg of a Middle East tour. He spent the night in Jordan as part of a drive to promote a peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.
"I think it's just part of al-Qaeda and other terroristorganisations' willingness to kill innocent people in order to push forward a criminal agenda, a terrorist agenda that very often has no purpose, has no meaning other than to strike out in rage," Mr Powellsaid of the Riyadh attack this morning.
On May 1st, the United States renewed a warning for citizens to avoid travel to Saudi Arabia. One official said intelligence agencies had credible information about a possible al-Qaeda plot to strike American targets there. The same day, a gunman wounded a US civilian at a naval base in Saudi Arabia.
On May 7th, police said they were hunting 19 suspected militants, mainly Saudis, believed to be hiding in Riyadh after a shoot-out with security forces the previous day.
Agencies