Riyadh, Saudi Arabia ? Three explosions rocked a residential compound in the Saudi capital Saturday night, killing at least two people and wounding 86, in what a government official said was a suicide car bombing.

The attack came a day after the U.S. Embassy warned that terror attacks could be imminent in the tense Gulf kingdom, and America’s three diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia were closed Saturday as a result.

Just before the midnight blasts, an unknown number of attackers broke into the upscale compound of about 200 villas, a Saudi official said, and gunfire was heard.

An Interior Ministry official told The Associated Press early today the attack was a suicide car bombing. He said two people were killed, both security guards, and 86 were wounded.

However, immediately after the explosion, there were widely conflicting reports of the number of dead. An official at a Riyadh hospital said dozens of people were killed, but, when contacted again, said only that some people were dead.

A U.S. Embassy official said one American was wounded and one registered American was unaccounted for. The Embassy was to remain closed today, and U.S. diplomats will restrict their movements to the diplomatic quarter.

Diplomats and officials said most of the residents of the compound’s 200 villas were Lebanese. Some Saudis also live there, plus a few German, French and Italian families.

Officials at the King Khaled Specialist Hospital and the King Faisal Special Hospital & Research Center said the two hospitals had received 38 wounded people.

Flames could be seen still burning at the compound several hours after the explosion.

In this image from video, an injured woman is treated at a hospital after one of three explosions in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The extent of the injuries from the blasts was unknown Saturday.

Al-Arabiya television showed shots of bloodied men and women being treated at hospitals.

State-run Saudi TV aired live footage from the devastated section of the residential compound, showing collapsed buildings, piles of rubble, twisted metal and debris spread over a large area.

TV footage showed a large crater, apparently gouged out by an explosion, as emergency workers poured over the bomb blast site, which security forces had sealed off.

Huge flames were seen leaping into the night sky as helicopters hovered overhead, beaming search lights down onto the bomb ravaged area.

A woman living in the compound told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that “there is lot of blood” at the scene of the explosions.

“I am extremely terrified; I am really scared. I felt it was an earthquake,” the woman said without identifying herself.

“Lots of houses are damaged, windows shattered,” she said, adding that police sirens wailed throughout the compound. “Ambulances were picking up lots of people. It looks like there are lots of people who died.”

The Saudi government official said the explosions took place in the Muhaya compound. He said that the attackers traded fire with the guards and that there were apparently three explosions.

He said most of the wounded were believed to be children because their parents were out shopping during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

A May 12 attack on Western residential compounds in Riyadh killed 35 people, including the nine attackers. It was blamed on the al-Qaida terror network, and Saudi authorities have arrested hundreds of suspected militants throughout the country since. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks were Saudis.

In the May attack, gunmen also broke into residential compounds before explosions were set off.

In the latest attack, diplomats reported one big explosion about midnight, followed by two smaller ones 15 seconds apart. The streets were crowded with late night crowds because of Ramadan, when Muslims fast during the day and have dinners and parties late into the night.

Dozens of police cars and ambulances raced toward the site of the blasts, sirens wailing, and helicopters hovered overhead. Traffic was tied up across the city.

Hanadi al-Ghandaki, manager of the targeted compound, told al-Arabiya that about 100 people were wounded, mostly children “because most adults were outside the compound at that time.” She did not elaborate.

Rabie Hadeka, a resident inside the compound, told Al-Arabiya that “about 20 to 30 people have been killed and 50 to 60 injured.”

She told Al-Arabiya that “shattered glass was spread everywhere after we heard three very strong explosions.”

Police said the explosions were three miles from an entrance to the Saudi capital’s diplomatic quarter.

“We heard a very strong explosion and we saw the fire,” Bassem al-Hourani, who said he was a resident at the targeted compound, told Al-Arabiya in a telephone interview.

“I heard screams of the children and women. I don’t know what happened to my friends, if anybody was injured,” he said. “All the glass in my house were shattered.”

Almost all the foreign embassies in Riyadh — including the U.S. Embassy — and most diplomats’ homes are inside the diplomatic quarter, an isolated neighborhood whose entrances are guarded. But there are several residential compounds housing Western business people relatively near the diplomatic quarter.

A Western diplomat said he got a call from a friend who reported seeing smoke rising from a building on the other side of the diplomatic quarter near an area where the palaces of the royal family’s senior princes are located.

The city’s main palaces, including those of senior princes and the king’s sprawling Riyadh residence, are just outside the east side of the diplomatic quarter. Each of the palaces is behind a high wall, with automatic gates for cars to drive through, and guards.