A Higher Level Of Terrorism Size Of Dhahran Blast Overwhelmed Recent Security Precautions

The giant bomb that killed 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia was so mammoth that it overcame recent security improvements and raised the level of Middle East terrorism to “a different dimension,” an American general said Wednesday.

Army Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III said the bomb would have done massive damage even if had it been farther away from the apartment building it devastated.

His comments seemed framed to answer a compelling question in the aftermath of the deadly terrorist attack. How, with so much warning of potential danger, could so many lives have been lost?

Over and over, Peay, who commands U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, and other American officials noted that the disaster might have been far worse - even as they pondered how it killed 19 Americans and injured hundreds of others.

American transport jets began flying the remains of the dead home as today dawned over the wreckage of Building 131 in the congested Khobar Towers compound at the King Abdul Aziz Air Base outside Dhahran.

The bodies of first of the U.S. Air Force personnel killed in the explosion Tuesday were due to arrive at a military mortuary at the Dover, Del., Air Force Base at about 10 a.m. today, officials said. Scores of U.S. service members were still recovering in local Saudi hospitals from what officials said were mostly blast fragmentation wounds caused when the bomb-laden fuel truck was detonated about 35 yards outside the high-rise apartment building.

And a special team of 40 FBI experts flown from the United States was on the ground piecing together details of the incident.

Many of those killed in the blast were enlisted personnel living in the high-rise apartment buildings. Building 131 was almost exclusively American. Many were there for relatively short tours of duty. One of the units, the 58th Fighter Squadron from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, was due to return to the United States on Friday.

President Clinton announced that he would cut short a visit to France to attend memorial services Sunday for bombing victims at Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Fla., and Patrick Air Force Base near Cocoa Beach, Fla.

Families of many of the victims live near those two bases.

Clinton, who traveled to France on Wednesday for G-7 summit of major world powers, said of the Saudi blast:

“My heart is there today, and has been. It is difficult to think about anything else but our people in uniform there and especially those whose lives were lost, and their families.”

American officials were able to say nothing about what made up the bomb. But for the first time there was a claim of responsibility.

A London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Arab, said a caller claimed credit in the name of a previously unknown group called the “Legion of the martyr Abdullah al-Huzaifi.”

U.S. officials, meanwhile marveled at the size of the blast, while they tried to explain how it had overcome security measures put in place after a 200-pound truck bomb had killed five Americans in Saudi Arabia last November.

Peay, the commander in chief of the Tampa, Fla.-based Central Command, said the fence beside which the truck parked outside the northwest corner of American compound had been in place “for some time.”

But after the Nov. 13 bombing near Riyadh the Khobar Towers perimeter fence had been reinforced with “Jersey barriers,” - waist-high, concrete highway barriers, he said.

“That combination kept that particular vehicle external,” Peay said, speaking to reporters from his headquarters at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

“Frankly, you could have moved that blast a number, number of yards further out and you probably would have had similar results,” he said. “So this was an act of exorbitant degree of capability … that you don’t normally see.”

His views were echoed by other American officials.

“It’s almost incredible the loss of life wasn’t larger,” Secretary of State Warren Christopher said after flying from Cairo, Egypt to visit the site. “What an outrage this was … It’s a very bleak day for all of us.”

Said Defense Secretary William Perry: “Were it not for the fence and the security barrier around … these apartments, there would have been many, many more casualties.”

As Perry and Peay both prepared to visit Dharan, many details about the incident remained sketchy.

Peay, for example, was vague about who was responsible for security around the American compound.

Outside the fence security patrols were handled by the Saudis with “infrequent work” by American forces, he said. There were reportedly no restrictions on entry to the air base itself, and Peay described the region outside the compound as an open field that was a “general-public area.”

Peay also said that despite suspicious activity around the compound and State Department cautions in recent months there was no real warning of an impending attack.

There was “no specific intelligence that would say that tomorrow morning there’s going to be a specific act,” he said.

Tuesday’s bomb was comparable in size to the truck bomb set off outside the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 on April 19, 1995. Two years before, it was a 1,000-pound truck bomb set off in a parking garage below the World Trade Center in New York that killed six and injured hundreds.

And it was a truck loaded with about 2,500 pounds of TNT encased in tanks of heating gas that killed 241 U.S. Marines and sailors when it was detonated inside their barracks in Beirut in 1983.

MEMO: Cut in Spokane edition

This sidebar appeared with the story in the Spokane edition: FAIRCHILD PERSONNEL At least 11 people from Fairchild Air Force Base were in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where a truck bomb exploded Tuesday, militiary officials disclosed Wednesday. None of the Fairchild-based people was killed, but two suffered minor cuts and bruises, said Sgt. Sue Conard, a base spokeswoman. She wouldn’t released names of the injured or others assigned to Dhahran. There are 250-people from Fairchild on temporarily duty in Saudi Arabia. Another 21 airmen from McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma and a soldier from nearby Fort Lewis were confirmed safe, McChord spokesman Dave Smith said. Smith said he had no information on whether some of them might have suffered injuries.