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RIYADH/WASHINGTON, Wednesday (Reuters) U.S. President George W. Bush has vowed to hunt down those responsible for the deadly bombings in Saudi Arabia that U.S. officials and terrorism experts agree was almost certainly masterminded by the al Qaeda network.

FBI director Robert Mueller said he was sending a team of agents to help Saudi authorities investigate Monday night's suicide bombings of expatriate housing compounds in the capital Riyadh, which killed at least 29 people, including at least seven Americans.

The bombings in the world's largest oil exporter delivered a bloody reminder to the Bush administration that despite its successful overthrow of Saddam Hussein in neighbouring Iraq, its "war on terror" was far from over.

Bush said he suspected al Qaeda was responsible and vowed a relentless hunt for those responsible for the first major attack on Americans since the Iraq war. "These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate, and the United States will find the killers and they will learn the meaning of American justice," Bush said. "The war on terror continues.

"We've destroyed about one half of al Qaeda, the top operators of al Qaeda, and that's good. But we've got more work to do."

The Saudi ambassador to London blamed members of a group of 19 al Qaeda suspects who evaded capture in Riyadh last week, some days after the United States warned an attack against U.S. interests was being planned.

Meanwhile the State Department ordered U.S. Embassy dependents and nonemergency staff to leave Saudi Arabia after a series of suicide bombings in Riyadh.

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