Riyadh: Suspected al-Qaida suicide bombers struck Saudi Arabian capital city of Riyadh on May 13, killing more than 90 people, including 10 to 12 Americans, according to US State Department officials.

Cars packed with explosives rammed through housing compounds for westerners before midnight, leaving behind a trail of rubble and mangled vehicles in their wake.

The attacks took place just two weeks after the US pulled out troops from the kingdom following the defeat of Saddam Hussein in neighbouring Iraq.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell on arrival in Riyadh from Jordan said he saw al-Qaida hand in the blasts and said, "Terrorism is the number-one priority of all of us and we will not rest until we have dealt with this threat to all of us."

Powell said the attacks had the hallmarks of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on US cities.

Powell added that 10 Americans and many more foreigners were among the dead. A Saudi medical source said earlier at least 25 people had been killed.

The statement gave a breakdown of the victims' nationalities as follows: two Jordanian children, two Filipinos, one Lebanese, one Swiss, seven Saudis and seven Americans.

"Twenty people were killed in the car bombs in Riyadh last night," said an Interior Ministry statement read out on state television. "Nine charred bodies were also found at the sites and they are believed to be those of the terrorists."

The statement also said 194 people had been wounded in the simultaneous massive car bomb blasts.

There had been warnings of attacks on Westerners in the kingdom. Al-Qaida has been accused of previous bombings in pursuit of demands that non-Muslim American troops leave Saudi soil.

Australia said one of its citizens was also killed.

Prince Nayef linked the blasts to a fugitive group of 19 suspected al-Qaida sympathisers, mainly Saudis, who disappeared in the Saudi capital on May 6. The Interior Ministry said police had also found a huge cache of explosives, hand grenades, ammunition and machineguns.

A US official who declined to be identified said there had been at least four bombs. Witnesses earlier said they had heard three blasts, which sent fire balls into the night sky above the Gharnata, Ishbiliya and Cordoba compounds. The official's count included a housing compound for a joint Western-Saudi company.

Cars and pickup trucks, badly twisted and still smoldering, littered the three compounds, which housed villas and four-storey blocks.

Many balconies were blown off, their truncated steel girders jutting out. The bombs gouged massive holes in walls and brought down roofs.

ANI