An Irishman was shot and killed on Tuesday when armed men stormed into his office and began firing machine guns, Irish and Saudi officials said.
A spokeswoman for Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs said the man was killed at about 5pm.
"Obviously our consular section [in Dublin] ... and our embassy in Riyadh are involved in the case and are liasing with the Saudi authorities," she said on condition of anonymity.
She would not give further details, including the man's name.
It was the second killing of an Irishman in the Saudi capital in two months.
A Saudi official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the man was killed when at least two armed men stormed the office of the Saudi-owned Rocky for Trade and Construction and began shooting machine guns.
Al-Arabiya satellite TV said the victim was a 63-year-old engineer.
The Riyadh police chief told the official Saudi Press Agency that police were investigating the slaying. He said police received a call at about 5pm saying the man was dead inside his office.
The Saudi Press Agency carried no further details.
On June 6, Irishman Simon Cumbers, 36, a cameraman with the BBC, was shot and killed while filming a militant's family home in Riyadh. Security corres-pondent Frank Gardner, 42, a Briton, was critically wounded in that attack.
Westerners have been the targets of shootings, suicide bombings and kidnappings in the kingdom in recent months in attacks that are seen as an attempt to undermine the economy, which depends heavily on expatriate labor.
The last terror attack against a Westerner was the kidnapping of American engineer Paul Johnson on June 12 and his beheading six days later.
Two other Americans were killed in the kingdom in the week before Johnson's kidnapping.
The wave of violence in Saudi Arabia began May 12, 2003, when car bombs targeted three compounds housing foreign workers, killing 35 people, including nine suicide bombers. Since then, the kingdom has suffered a series of suicide bombings, gunbattles and kidnappings.
The attacks have been blamed on groups allied to al-Qaeda, the terror group led by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS