Four people, including two security men, were killed and 148 wounded Wednesday in a suicide car bombing near a Saudi security building in Riyadh, the Interior Ministry said.

"There were four people killed, two of them security men, in addition to a civil servant and an 11-year-old Syrian girl," the ministry said in a statement aired by state television.

"The number of the wounded was 148, of whom 103 have left hospital and 45 remain there. Three injured are in critical condition," the statement added.

The statement did not include the suicide bomber, who the ministry said tried to drive his vehicle into the General SecurityBuilding, the administrative headquarters of Saudi security, but was stopped by guards.

Nevertheless, officials from three hospitals which admitted casualties revealed that at least nine people were killed, including the assailant, and 125 others injured in the attack, saying the toll could rise as rescue crews continued to go throughthe rubble of the wreckage.

The incident, which occurred about 2 p.m. (1100 GMT) and came just days after a US warning of possible terror attacks in Riyadh,struck at an hour that workers would have been leaving their offices for the Saudi weekend.

The front of the building was severely damaged by the explosion,witnesses said.

Saudi officials said the attack bore the hallmark of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and appears to be related to the terrorist group.

Last month, an Internet message purportedly from al-Qaeda threatened Saudi security officers, saying that to attack them "intheir homes, or workplace, is a very easy matter."

Police last week seized three vehicles loaded with more than four tons of explosives, which had apparently been abandoned by militants after a shootout with security forces.

In May and November 2003, suicide bombings rocked residential compounds inhabited mostly by expatriates in the capital, killing 52 people, and investigators said al-Qaeda was the plotter.

Source: Xinhua