Al-Qaeda escalated its campaign against Saudi Arabia and Westerners in the kingdom by killing one American and kidnapping another to avenge US mistreatment of Muslim prisoners, an Islamist Web site said yesterday.
Saturday's attacks, the sixth on Westerners in six weeks, sent shockwaves among tens of thousands of expatriates in the world's largest oil exporter, prompting fears of mass exodus.
The Web site that carried the claim also posted a video showing the purported killing of another American in the capital, Riyadh, earlier in the week.
Witnesses said American Kenneth Scroggs, who worked for Advanced Electronics Co, which manufactures military and commercial electronic products, was shot dead on Saturday as he parked his car in front of his villa in a Riyadh suburb.
The company, owned by the Saudi government and Gulf Arab firms, declined comment when contacted.
It was not immediately known if the latest escalation would prompt companies to pull out. Many Western firms have already evacuated families and non-essential staff. Some have decided to repatriate Western staff to neighboring Bahrain.
Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the slaying in a statement on the Sawt al Jihad Web site. It said the American seized at the same time was Paul Marshal Johnson, a 49-year-old New Jersey engineer specializing in Apache helicopters.
The Interior Ministry said the American had gone missing after he left his office and that his car was found in Riyadh.
Al-Qaeda branded him "an American Christian parasite" and said it would soon release a video of the captive, whose business card displayed on the Web site showed he worked for Lockheed Martin as a site manager and systems engineer.
"The mujahideen were able in the same operation to kill another American working as a manager in the military sector. They stalked him and then they killed him in his home," it said.
"[We] reserve the legitimate right to deal with the Americans in the same way to avenge what the Americans did to our brothers in [Baghdad's] Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo."
The US embassy confirmed one American was shot dead in Riyadh on Saturday and that another was missing.
"We are working with local authorities to find him," a spokeswoman said.
In April, European embassies cited a Saudi security document as warning that militants could attempt to attack senior Saudi officials and kidnap or kill Westerners.
Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda has vowed that this year would be "bloody and miserable" for the kingdom, a key US ally.
Fears about Saudi security helped push world oil prices to record highs this month before producers pledged to hike output.
Police found a car rigged with explosives in a suburb near foreigners' housing, Al Arabiya television said on Saturday. It was unclear if the incidents were linked.
Saturday's attack came after militants killed 22 people in a shooting and hostage-taking spree in the oil city of Khobar late last month.
On Tuesday, gunmen killed US military contractor Robert Jacobs, whose death was purportedly shown in the online video. It showed a man, who appeared to be a Westerner, fall to the ground as two men holding guns run toward him.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS