A Frenchman was shot dead in the Red Sea city of Jeddah early yesterday in what Saudi officials said was a "terrorist attack," the second shooting of a Westerner in the oil-rich kingdom in 10 days.
"We can say through the preliminary investigation that it is a terrorist attack," interior ministry spokesman Mansur al-Turki said.
Sources in the kingdom's French community identified the victim as Laurent Barbot, employed with French defense electronics company Thales, which is working on a military project in Jeddah and the eastern industrial city of Jubail.
Turki confirmed the victim worked for Thales, formerly known as Thomson CSF, and said he was shot twice with a machine gun. He said he was found dying and covered in blood at the wheel of his jeep which was blocking a lane on a road.
"A resident of French nationality was the target of shots that brought about his death on Sunday [yesterday] at 1am in the Al-Zahra district of Jeddah," an interior ministry spokesman told the official SPA news agency.
French diplomats in Saudi Arabia could not be immediately reached for comment.
The incident was the latest in a series of shootings targeting Westerners but the first involving a French national in the kingdom, which has been battling a deadly wave of terror attacks since May 2003 blamed on al-Qaeda sympathizers.
Okaz newspaper yesterday quoted a witness as saying that the victim was shot twice through the windshield of his jeep.
The witness "found a vehicle blocking a lane ... he saw the driver moving in a strange manner. He approached the car only to see the driver covered in blood and dying after two shots had obviously penetrated the windshield," the daily said.
The French embassy usually advises its nationals in Saudi Arabia through messages posted on its Web site to observe all measures of prudence and security.
On Sept. 15 a British national was killed in a shooting in Riyadh. He worked for telecommunications company Marconi, which advises the Saudi national guard.
A statement issued last week by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudi branch of Osama bin Laden's terror network, claimed responsibility for his death.
"It is a message to the crusaders and their accomplices, the tyrants, that the mujahidin are determined ... to crush the crusading forces, to free the land of Islam in order to establish the rule of God and cleanse the Arabian Peninsula of infidels," said the statement.
An Irish civil engineer was killed in the capital on Aug. 3. The shooting was also claimed by al-Qaeda's Saudi branch.
On Sept. 11 two blasts occur-red hours apart near two Saudi and Western banks in Jeddah, and the authorities announced the arrest of two suspects, despite earlier speculation that the bombs that left very limited damage were criminally motivated.
The Saudis have been hunting supporters of al-Qaeda in the kingdom. The group's local leader, Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin, was killed in mid-June, shortly after the Arabian Peninsula group published pictures of the beheading of US engineer Paul Johnson, kidnapped June 12 in Riyadh.
King Fahd offered a month-long amnesty in June for militants to surrender, but only six people came forward.
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