"These criminals are dreaming if they think they can disturb the security of our country," stressed Prince Abdullah

RIYADH, May 14 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz denounced late Tuesday, May 13, the "terrorist" bombing attacks which rocked the capital Riyadh late Monday, May 12, and vowed to clamp down on terror.

In a televised address, Prince Abdullah pledged to hunt down those who tried to commit "terrorist acts," asserting that the perpetrators would be punished in hell for their actions, reported the BBC News Online.

He described those who carried out the bombings as "criminal butchers, devoid of any Islamic or human values" and "beasts, seeking only to shed blood".

"There is no other interpretation: These killers are cursed here on Earth, and in the hereafter their fate is hellfire," he said, quoting the holy Quran.

"If those murderers believe that their bloody crimes will shake even one hair on the body of this nation and its unity, they are deceiving themselves. If they believe they will shake the security and stability of our country, they are dreaming," thundered the Saudi Crown Prince.

"There is no place for terrorism, and we are determined to firmly suppress it and do the same to those who support it ideologically or who sympathize with it," he told the Saudi people.

In particular, Prince Abdullah said, "we warn all those who try to find a justification for these crimes in the Muslim religion ... and we tell them that they will become accomplices to murder and they will be punished like them.

"These criminals are dreaming if they think they can disturb the security of our country ... where the Saudi people adopt the Quran and Sharia (Islamic law) as doctrine and refuse to see this small number of corrupt people being the origin of innocent blood being spilt," he added.

Trying to calm Saudis and thousands of expatriates living in the kingdom, the Saudi crown prince said: "We promise our fellow citizens, our guests and our brothers that the kingdom will watch over their security and is capable of eradicating this group of corrupt people and those who support them.

The Saudi pledge to "suppress" terrorism and those who sympathize with it might signal more freedom restrictions at a time the United States is pressing Mideast countries, including the kingdom, for more political reforms.

The Saudi crown prince has discussed with U.S. President George W. Bush Tuesday over the phone the tragic terror attacks.

President Bush expressed to Prince Abdullah "his condolences for the victims of the terror attacks which were carried out in Riyadh Monday by a handful of criminals," the official SPA agency said.

He also "expressed the support of the United States for the government and people of Saudi Arabia in the fight against terrorism, and expressed his sympathy with the kingdom," it added.

Bush had angrily vowed a "relentless" campaign to stamp out groups like al-Qaeda, which were blamed for the bombings, the first major attacks on U.S.-related targets since the war in Iraq.

"It doesn't matter how long it takes, the war on terror goes on. And this incident in Saudi Arabia shows the country that we still have got a war to fight. And we will fight it and we will win it," Bush told reporters in Indianapolis, Indiana.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who toured one of the bombed sites Tuesday, said the attacks bore "all the fingerprints" of al-Qaeda, blamed for the September 11, 2001 strikes on New York and Washington.

Washington had ordered non-essential U.S. diplomats and the families of all its embassy and consulate personnel to leave Saudi Arabia.

The Riyadh attacks followed recent U.S. warnings that terrorists were "in the final phases" of plotting attacks against U.S. interests in Saudi Arabia.

They also came days after Saudi Arabia announced it had uncovered an al-Qaeda cell planning to carry out major attacks in the kingdom and that security forces were hunting 17 Saudis, one Kuwaiti-Canadian of Iraqi origin and a Yemeni.

The Washington Post said the bombers were part of the same cell of at least 50 or 60 members formed after the September 11 attacks and led by Khaled Jehani.

U.S. officials believe the car bombings were not timed to coincide with Powell's visit to Saudi Arabia, but were related to a police raid and shootout at the cell's hideout, the daily said.

Jehani, a Saudi national who went abroad at 18 and fought in Bosnia and Chechnya, returned home after the U.S.-led attack on an al-Qaeda stronghold in the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan in December 2001, Saudi officials told the Post.

He has been on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation list of al-Qaeda suspects since January 2002, said the daily.

Al-Qaeda implied it carried out the Riyadh bombings in a message received Tuesday by a London-published Saudi weekly newspaper, Al-Majallah, which also threatened "operations in the Gulf countries and countries allied to America, particularly Egypt and Jordan."

With anti-U.S. sentiment running high in Saudi Arabia following the war on Iraq, Riyadh and Washington announced in late April they were ending the presence of some 10,000 U.S. troops, dozens of aircraft and a state-of-the-art command and control system in the kingdom.

The departure of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, was the main demand of bin Laden.