A Western petrochemical firm targeted by gunmen in Saudi Arabia said yesterday it was evacuating some staff after five of their colleagues were killed and the US embassy repeated a warning for Americans to leave.
Militants sprayed gunfire inside an oil contractor's office, killing at least six people -- two Americans, two Britons, an Australian and a Saudi, then tied one of their victims to the bumper of a car and dragged it past horrified students at a high school in this Red Sea industrial town of Yanbu.
Police killed the four gunmen in a shootout after a car chase. One of the attackers killed was reported to be on the kingdom's list of most-wanted terrorists, many of them suspects in previous suicide attacks on foreign housing compounds in Riyadh. The two attacks were blamed on al-Qaeda.
Students told reporters yesterday that bearded men drove a car into the Ibn Hayyan Secondary Boys School parking lot as classes began on Saturday. They fired into the air to attract students' attention, then urged the boys to go to an Iraqi city where US troops are battling insurgents.
"God is great! God is great! Come join your brothers in Fallujah," they shouted. Pointing to the bloodied and badly damaged corpse, his clothes shredded, they screamed: "This is the president of America."
Students and school officials said some of the boys ran crying from the scene.
An 18-year-old student, who gave only his first name, Rayyan, said he saw three bearded men in the car.
"I was shocked and terrified when I saw them. I just froze. I didn't know what to do," Rayyan said, his voice shaking. "I couldn't eat and I couldn't sleep the whole night. I have been having nightmares ...This thing has changed my life forever."
"This is not right," he said. "This is un-Islamic."
The man Rayyan and other students saw being dragged was apparently taken from oil contractor ABB-Lummus's office. Reports on the number of wounded ranged from 25 to 50. Reports on the number of Saudi victims conflicted.
The Saudi Press Agency report said a Saudi National Guardsman was killed. The US Embassy said several Saudi security workers were "killed and wounded in their fight with the terrorists," but gave no numbers. An American, a Pakistani and a Canadian were reported injured along with at least 18 soldiers or police.
Swiss-based firm ABB Lummus said staff who were traumatized by the attack, the first militant strike against an economic target in the kingdom, would be going home.
It did not say how many would leave, but the company has about 90 employees in Yanbu and it said 110 working elsewhere in Saudi Arabia would continue to work.
The gunmen had killed the top three officials involved in an upgrading project at the Saudi petrochemical firm YANPET, jointly owned by US Exxon Mobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corp, an ABB executive said.
Three of the gunmen worked at the ABB-Lummus office in Yanbu. They used their key cards to enter the building and sneak another attacker through an emergency gate, according to an Interior Ministry source quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency.
The four attackers are brothers and are Saudis, a security official said condition of anonymity. He did not further identify them.
Crown Prince Abdullah said "foreign elements" were behind the killing and Saudi Ambassador to Britain Turki al-Faisal said he believed al Qaeda was responsible.
Crown Prince Abdullah, speaking on Saudi television, said: "The kingdom will eliminate terrorism no matter how long it takes."
State oil firm Saudi Aramco has vowed to guard he kingdom's vital oil assets, saying it had tightened security measures for plants and employees.
Armed guards outside the petrochemical plant where Saturday's initial attack took place barred journalists from entering the facility yesterday. Security was tight throughout Yanbu yesterday, with police checkpoints and staggered cement roadblocks slowing traffic. Armored personnel vehicles guarded the main road from the airport and blocked streets.
Jina Abercrombie-Winstanley, the US consul general based in Jiddah, said she met with some of the about 400 Americans in Yanbu yesterday and repeated an earlier US warning of "credible indications of terrorist threats aimed at American and Western interests in Saudi Arabia" and advice to Americans to leave the kingdom.
"The situation is still very dangerous ... we urge Americans to consider departure," she said, adding that some Americans in Yanbu were considering that advice.
In another attack in the city on Saturday, a pipe bomb was thrown over a wall of the Yanbu International School, causing minor damage and slightly injuring a custodian, according to the Overseas Security Advisory Council, which shares security information between the US government and the private sector.
``Staff and children had already been advised not to report to school that morning,'' apparently in response to the shooting, said a warden's message posted at the US Embassy's Web site.
Intelligence had suggested al-Qaeda wanted to strike at Saudi oil interests. Bin Laden -- a Saudi exile -- long has called for the overthrow of the Saudi royal family and questioned its Islamic credentials.
Saudi Arabia _ the world's biggest oil producer -- relies heavily on 6 million expatriate workers, including about 30,000 Americans, to run its oil industry and other sectors. The kingdom produces about 8 million barrels of oil a day.
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