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.
NETWORK-MAPPING PROJECT: The database contains 170 detailed files of Taiwanese politicians and about 23 million records of household registration data in Taiwan China has developed a network-mapping project targeting political figures and parties in Taiwan to monitor public opinion during elections and to craft tailored influence campaigns aimed at dividing Taiwanese society, according to documents leaked by Chinese technology firm GoLaxy (中科天璣). The documents, collected by Taipei-based Doublethink Lab, showed a database was specifically created to gather detailed information on Taiwanese political figures, including their political affiliations, job histories, birthplaces, residences, education, religion and a brief biography about them. Several notable Taiwanese politicians are in the database, including President William Lai (賴清德), former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍),
RECOGNITION: Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region Taiwan can lead the unification of the Chinese people, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said in Taipei yesterday, adding that as the world order is changing, peaceful discussion would find good solutions, and that the use of force and coercion would always fail. Walesa made the remarks during his keynote address at a luncheon of the Yushan Forum in Taipei, titled “Indo-Pacific Partnership Prospects: Taiwan’s Values, Technology and Resilience,” organized by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Walesa said that he had been at the forefront of a big peaceful revolution and “if
North Korea tested nuclear-capable rocket launchers, state media reported yesterday, a day after Seoul detected the launch of about 10 ballistic missiles. The test comes after South Korean and US forces launched their springtime military drills, due to run until Thursday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday oversaw the testing of the multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The test involved 12 600mm-caliber ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies, it said. Kim said the drill gave Pyongyang’s enemies, within the 420km striking range, a sense of “uneasiness” and “a deep understanding
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
RSS