Beirut (MER) - A car bomb killed one Briton and wounded at least 12 people on Saturday at a theatre frequented by Westerners in Qatar, command center for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which began exactly two years ago. A Qatari investigator told Reuters a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into the theatre near a British school in the capital Doha, badly damaging the playhouse. "There are two dead, including the suicide bomber," said a second Qatari source, who also declined to be named. It was the first attack of its kind in the oil-producing Gulf Arab state, which hosts the U.S. military's Central Command. No one has so far claimed responsibility for the blast.
Earlier, the Interior Ministry said the blast at the single storey theatre, where William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" was being staged, had been caused by a rigged car. "One person was killed and 12 were wounded, of whom 10 have left hospital," the ministry said in a statement on the state news agency QNA. Britain's Foreign Office said the dead person was a Briton. Brigadier General Ahmad al-Hayki of the Interior Ministry told Qatar-based Al Jazeera television most of the wounded were Qataris, other Arabs and Asians.
"One building at the theatre collapsed. There was pandemonium in the area. It took firefighters some time to putout the fire," a British diplomat in Doha, Eric Mattey, told Britain's Sky television. Sky quoted an unidentified British resident in Qatar as saying his daughter was on stage at the Doha Players theatre when the blast occurred. "She felt the blast, saw flames in the theatre and part of a ceiling collapsing," he said.
Al Qaeda Attacks
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's supporters have staged attacks in neighboring and nearby Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but Qatar prides itself on its security and has not experienced suicide bomb attacks before.
The United States issued a fresh warning to its citizens earlier this week to be vigilant for possible terrorist attacks in the Gulf, Middle East and North African regions.
Al-Jazeera quoted the Interior Ministry as saying the car used in the attack was registered in the name of an Egyptian. The channel's correspondent at the scene said about 100 people had been inside the theatre. Witnesses said the force of the blast shattered windows of houses and cars in the residential area. White plumes of smoke rose above the building.
A security guard at the British school said the blast shattered several windows in the building, which was closed at the time, and that a ceiling collapsed in an auditorium. He said about 40 teachers living in the compound were evacuated but no one was hurt. The Foreign Office spokesman said the blast was "opposite the Doha English Speaking School". Anti-U.S. sentiment has been high in the region over the Iraq war and perceived U.S. support for Israel against Palestinians.
The suspected leader of al-Qaeda's wing in Saudi Arabia had urged Islamists in other Gulf Arab states, including Qatar, to join a holy war against "crusaders" in the region, according to a letter posted on the Internet on Thursday. Last year, a car bomb in Doha killed exiled Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. A Qatar court sentenced two Russian spies to life imprisonment for the assassination but they were later handed over to Moscow at Russia's request.
