CAIRO, May 13 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATIN...

CAIRO, May 13 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH REMARKS from U.S. AMBASSADOR, SAUDI PRINCE, U SECRETARY OF STATE)

Possibly as many as 10 folks were killed and scores impair when explosions ripped by means of compounds housing Western nationals in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh late Monday.

U Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Robert Jordan told BBC Radio that the number of fatalities could rise to 10 He earlier told CNN that more than 40 Americans have been treated for injuries in hospitals and a certain Americans were killed.

The BBC earlier reported upon its Web site that three race including a Saudi national, a Lebanese citizen and a Westerner, were killed in the simultaneous explosions that went along at three different locations in succession the eve of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's planned visit to the city.

It quot Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef as saying, ''The three explosions that occurr in eastern Riyadh were suicide bombings...set on the farther side by cars stuffed with explosives that were driven into the targeted compounds''

CNN reported that united of those killed was the son of Riyadh's delegate governor.

Powell, speaking Tuesday in Amman, Jordan, pronounce guiltyed the ''cowardly individuals'' who were behind the attacks, which he said ''had all the earmarks'' of an al-Qaida operation.

''The United States will not be deterr from pursuing the interests of peace around the world in the face of this kind of terrorism,'' he said.

In Japan, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said three Japanese were slightly injured in the bomb blasts. The three were able to drive themselves to hospital, Kawaguchi told reporters.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo moderns International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group