Probe into fatal Qatar bomb blast

The Briton killed was thought to be the play's director

An investigation has begun into a suicide car bombing in the Gulf state of Qatar that killed a British man and injured 12 other people.

Authorities in Qatar blamed an Egyptian man for carrying out the attack outside a theatre near the capital, Doha.

The attack, the first of its kind in the Gulf state, has shocked the nation.

The dead man was Jonathan Adams, who was in his 50s and originally from Dorset. No group has yet said it carried out Saturday night's attack.

The attack comes on the second anniversary of the start of the US-led war in Iraq.

Interval

The blast occurred as scores of people - mostly Westerners - were watching a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at the Doha Players theatre, close to a British school in the Khalifa district.

Suddenly there was an ear-splitting blast and our whole house shook as shockwaves passed through Ayesha and Mariam, Doha City Your views: 'A serious shock' In Pictures: Qatar bombing

Qatari officials said 12 people, including six Qataris and a Briton, were treated in hospital for injuries and later released.

The BBC's Gulf correspondent, Julia Wheeler, says Mr Adams was believed to be the director of the play.

She reports one witness as saying Mr Adams was standing at the back of the auditorium when the bomb went off.

The witness said if the attack had occurred 10 minutes earlier during an interval, the loss of life could have been far greater.

The Qatar interior ministry named the suspected bomber as an Egyptian, Omar Ahmed Abdullah Ali.

The expat community is accepted here and until this attack occurred we believed that we would be safe Justin Waite Expat community shocked

The man's wife, contacted by the AFP news agency, said her husband was a devout Muslim and a man of integrity.

She said her husband, 38, worked as a computer programmer at Qatar Petroleum and had been living in Doha since 1990.

An employee at Qatar Petroleum told the Associated Press police had seized the bomb suspect's computer and other work equipment.

The interior ministry said the suicide bomber detonated his explosives from behind a brick wall close to the theatre, setting alight wooden buildings in its compound.

One witness, Dima, told the BBC News website: "A huge blast ripped through the theatre. The audience ran out through the auditorium. There was dust everywhere and it stank of things burning."

Ivan Morgan, chairman of governors of the school close to the blast, the Doha English Speaking school, told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper it had just improved its security and bomb-proofed most of its windows.

"That was the best £100,000 we have ever spent," he said.

'Vulnerable'

Western embassies had said they believed the threat from terrorism in Qatar, which hosts the US military's Central Command, was high.

On Thursday, al-Qaeda's Saudi boss, Saleh al-Oufi, used an Islamist website to urge attacks on "crusader" enemies in Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

The explosion has shocked the expatriate community in Qatar, where about 5,000 Britons live. There is also a large American contingent.

The BBC's Julia Wheeler says many expatriates of all nationalities have been left feeling vulnerable and afraid.

One expat, Iain Macdonald, told the BBC News website: "I have to seriously reconsider signing a new contract to work out here now that the arm of terror has gripped this small, friendly and generally benign country."

However, a journalist for Qatar Radio, Gina Coleman, said she did not see the bombing as the start of a series of attacks: "I don't feel threatened and I certainly won't start walking around in fear."