He did not give the man's name."An explosive device appears to have been placed on his car. We can't release details of his identity or injuries at this time," the spokesman said.The explosion was the third in less than a month targeting Saudi Arabia's British community.On Nov. 17, a car bomb killed Briton Christopher Rodway, 48, and wounded his wife On Nov. 22, a bomb exploded in another car, wounding two British men and a woman.An American citizen arrested last week is one of several suspects in the explosions.A Foreign Office spokesman said: "A British national has been seriously injured in what appears to have been a bomb explosion.

He was undergoing surgery last night."An explosive device appears to have been placed on his car. We can't release details of his identity or injuries at this time."The British Vice Consul in Al Khobar was in touch with the man's next of kin and was at the hospital last night, said the spokesman.Saudi police are investigating but it was too early to say whether the explosion was linked to two bomb attacks on Britons in Saudi Arabia last month."The security of the British community is of paramount concern to us and British citizens have been given advice on their security" said the spokesman.In the past few weeks there have been community meetings, and security advice has been posted on the Internet for Britons living in the country.. An airliner which crashed into an Indonesian swamp, killing all 104 people on board, was an apparent suicide attempt by the pilot, according to American accident investigators. An airliner which crashed into an Indonesian swamp, killing all 104 people on board, was an apparent suicide attempt by the pilot, according to American accident investigators. The US National Transportation Safety Board believes the Boeing 737, operated by Singaporean operator Silk Air, was put into a deliberate nosedive.The finding contradicts that of Indonesian investigators whose reports this week said the accident could not be explained based on the available evidence.It was three years ago this month, on 19 December 1997, that the flight crashed into the Musi River in the jungles of Sumatra during a flight from Jakarta to Singapore.In clear weather, the plane plummeted in a near vertical dive from a height of 35,000 feet. Crash analysts discovered that the cockpit voice and data recorders had been switched off half a minute before the plane began its descent.According to the report by Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, because of "the highly fragmented wreckage and the nearly total lack of useful data, information and evidence, the NTSC has to conclude that the technical investigation has yielded no evidence to explain the cause of the accident".But the American report claims that the plane's wreckage showed that the engines were operating at high power at the moment of impact, and that the controls were set to angle the plane nose down."The airplane departed cruise flight as a result of an intentional manoeuvre requiring sustained manual flight control inputs that were most likely performed by the captain," the report concluded.The plane's Singaporean pilot, Captain Tsu Way Ming had stock trading debts, significant credit card bills, a large loan and no obvious means of repaying them.Just before the crash, he had bought a $1m mortgage insurance policy with his wife as the beneficiary, although at the time he died he did not know whether the application had been approved.Yet the Indonesian investigation found no evidence "to indicate that the pilot, the co-pilot or any crew member had suicidal tendencies or a motive to deliberately cause the crash".. Bank of Scotland and Abbey National yesterday raised the stakes in the three-way poker game with Lloyds TSB, issuing a joint announcement that they have asked the Office of Fair Trading for merger clearance. Bank of Scotland and Abbey National yesterday raised the stakes in the three-way poker game with Lloyds TSB, issuing a joint announcement that they have asked the Office of Fair Trading for merger clearance. The move puts the pressure on Lloyds to back off and let Abbey and BoS go ahead with plans for a £26bn nil-premium merger, which have been stalled since Lloyds began its sabre-rattling two weeks ago.

One banker said last night: "This is telling Lloyds that it should either get its tanks off Abbey's lawn, or rev them up and show us what they are made of."Sir Brian Pitman, the Lloyds chairman, has tabled two offers to Abbey's board but has avoided making an irrevocable offer to shareholders, despite being rebuffed both times.Peter Burt, the BoS chief executive, has told Abbey's Ian Harley he is ready to do a deal but cannot go ahead while there is still an implicit threat from Lloyds to go hostile and bust up the deal.On Tuesday, Abbey rejected a raised £18.6bn offer from Lloyds, saying it had serious doubts over the deliverability of the £700m savings Lloyds says it can make. Abbey also feels a Lloyds bid would be referred to regulators and could be blocked.However, Abbey knows it cannot keep up its opposition to Lloyds without having an alternative on the table. Yesterday's statement is the clearest signal yet that Mr Burt is prepared to throw in his lot with Abbey and help Ian Harley try to stare out Sir Brian Pitman.Lloyds is relying on institutions to press Abbey into agreeing to talk. There were signs yesterday that fund managers are getting irritated at the way the three banks have managed to sideline the Takeover Panel, turning the contest into a US-style "anything goes" auction.One fund manager said: "It is not up to me to tell Abbey what to do.

It is up to Lloyds and Bank of Scotland to put something on the table. We have seen nothing yet."Brokers' soundings of Abbey's institutional shareholders have suggested they are deeply split about whether they want BoS or Lloyds. One banker said yesterday: "A hostile bid is like a general election: you only go for it if you know you can win. It is by no means clear that the majority will go Lloyds' way."Abbey has more than a million retail shareholders, who are notoriously difficult to corral in a hostile bid. BoS is keen to move the debate away from cost-cutting to the issue of who is best placed to create growth.A three-way comparison shows BoS winning hands down.