The explosion came only minutes before the midday call to prayer. The designer shops along Thirty Street, Riyadh's answer to Rodeo Drive, were preparing to close their doors, and American staffers at the Military Cooperation Program headquarters, a nondescript building just off the thoroughfare, headed as usual for the snack bar. Sharon Childer, a mail clerk from Tampa, Fla., heard the terrible sound. "It was almost as if I'd been electrocuted," she said. "I fainted, and seconds later I started hearing people screaming." The cafeteria and nearby offices were reduced to rubble and Childer found herself surrounded by dazed survivors "completely covered in dust and blood." A powerful car bomb, detonated just outside the building, had killed six, injured more than 60 and shattered the smug illusion that Saudi Arabia's capital was immune to terrorist attack.
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