Al-Qaeda's Saudi Arabian division has accepted responsibility for the attack on the U.S. Consulate in the city of Jeddah. The casualties amounted to 8 people, including five local consulate employees and three of the attackers.

 

``The manner in which it was carried out suggests the country's al-Qaeda cell might have launched a new campaign and further attacks are in the offing,'' says Sajjan Gohel, an expert in international terrorism, from the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation.

 

Al Qaeda added a statement on an Islamist Web site that said the attack targeted ``one of the bastions of the crusaders in the Arabian Peninsula.'' The statement however could not be authenticated but was signed by al-Qaeda's Saudi branch.

 

The last al-Qaeda-led out break of violence in the US occurred in May 2004 when a major attack happened in Khabor. Since then, Western visitors have been subject tot numerous attacks, including the assault on the an Irish engineer who was shot  in his Riyadh office in August and American hostage Paul Johnson Jr., a Lockheed Martin Corp. engineer, kiled in June.

 

Additional measures are being taken to promote security in the US missions. U.S. Embassy in Riyadh and the consulate in Dhahran have been closed for a second day.