RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Insurgents launched coordinated car bombings and battled security forces in the Saudi capital last night, leaving nine insurgents and one bystander dead, and causing oil prices to jump as the rebels signaled they will keep up their fight despite the kingdom’s crackdown on Al Qaeda.

A car bomb detonated near the Interior Ministry in central Riyadh – killing a bystander, according to Saudi TV – followed soon after by an explosion when suicide attackers tried to bomb a troop recruitment center.

The gunmen who set off the ministry blast by remote control then fled and battled police in northern Riyadh in a fight that killed seven rebels, a police official said.

The attacks came two weeks after Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called on his followers to focus attacks on his homeland. While damage to the Interior Ministry was minor, it was a bold assault on the government body at the center of Saudi Arabia’s war on Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists.

The violence sparked a jump in oil prices in afternoon trading in New York, helping push the price of a barrel of light crude up nearly $2 to $43.64.

The first explosion went off around 8:30 p.m. in central Riyadh near the Interior Ministry, a massive modern high-rise located in a complex that includes a luxury hotel. Two insurgents detonated a car bomb by remote control in a traffic tunnel near the ministry, police said. A limousine driver was killed, Saudi TV said.

Shattered glass littered the ground near the ministry, and several damaged cars – including a blood-splattered taxi – sat outside.

A half-hour later, a second explosion shook the city. Two suicide bombers tried to drive into a troop recruitment center about five miles away, but they came under fire from police and set off their explosives prematurely. The two bombers were killed, but there were no other reports of casualties.

The two rebels behind the ministry blast, apparently joined by accomplices, fought police in a northern district of the capital. The gunmen, armed with automatic weapons and grenades, fled into a building that police surrounded, and were later killed, police said.

An Interior Ministry official said a number of policemen were wounded. Abdel Rahman al Sewilem, head of the Saudi Red Crescent Society, told Saudi TV four to five people were injured. He did not say whether they were police, attackers, or bystanders, or provide any other details.

The explosions took place at night, when few employees were at the ministry or the recruitment center. Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki told Saudi TV the number of victims was not large, particularly given the explosions took place in heavily populated areas, but gave no numbers.

Past insurgent attacks – including some claimed by Al Qaeda – appeared designed to maximize casualties, but drew heavy criticism when many of the dead were Arab and Muslim. A nighttime attack focused on targets associated with Saudi security forces could have been meant to underline rebels’ opposition to the government while avoiding killing civilians.

Extremists have carried out a number of attacks recently – but not on the scale of dramatic operations early this year and last year that killed dozens.

Early yesterday, a suspected insurgent was killed in Riyadh after tossing a bomb and shooting at security agents, according to a security official. On Tuesday, another suspect and a bystander were killed in a shootout in the same Riyadh neighborhood, according to an Interior Ministry official. One suspect was captured in that attack.

However, on December 6, insurgents said to belong to Al Qaeda’s branch in the kingdom attacked the American Consulate in Jiddah, killing nine people.

Ten days later, Mr. bin Laden issued his audiotape – his first message in years directed specifically at Saudis. He praised those who carried out the consulate raid and urged his followers to attack the kingdom’s oil installations to weaken both the West and the Saudi royal family.

Saudi forces have cracked down heavily on Al Qaeda – killing and arresting a large number of its suspected top figures in the country – after the large attacks early in the year.

In May, gunmen attacked oil company compounds in Khobar, 250 miles northeast of Riyadh, and killed 22 people, 19 of them foreigners. Earlier the same month, attackers stormed the offices of an American company in Yanbu, 220 miles north of Jiddah, killing six Westerners, and a Saudi. All four attackers died in a shootout after a police chase in which they dragged the body of an American from the bumper of their car.

On April 21, a suicide bomber hit a government building in Riyadh, killing five people. In November 2003, a suicide bombing at a Riyadh housing compound killed 17 people, most of them Muslims working in Saudi Arabia.