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.
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