SAUDI ARABIA: A British defence contractor was shot dead in his car in the Saudi capital Riyadh yesterday, the fifth Westerner slain in the kingdom in the past three years.
Police arrested the alleged lone assailant minutes later but the Interior Ministry gave no indication as to a motive. The killing comes amid heightened anger in conservative Muslim Saudi Arabia over US and British plans to attack Iraq.
Saudi state media said the BAE Systems employee, named by diplomats as Robert Dent, died instantly in the attack on a busy street as he waited at a traffic light.
BAE - formerly British Aerospace - said he was married, in his early 30s, and a commercial officer at the company's Riyadh headquarters.
In audio tapes broadcast last week and attributed to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born fugitive urged Muslims to use all methods to fight the "infidel" United States, and specifically mentioned Westerners in the kingdom as a target.
Saudi Arabia is a key US ally and an estimated 60,000 Americans and Britons live and work there.
Diplomats in Riyadh said that nearly two weeks ago, another British man working for BAE was attacked in his car by gunmen, but escaped with minor injuries.
Saudi television interrupted regular programming to report the killing. It named the arrested man as Saud bin Ali bin Nasser, a 30-year-old car dealership employee and a naturalised Saudi citizen. Gulf news agencies said he was of Yemeni origin.
Four Westerners were killed in a spate of Saudi bombings that began in 2000. Saudi authorities are prosecuting the alleged bombers - all Westerners - and have linked the attacks to a thriving but illicit trade in alcohol.
But diplomats and analysts have said the blasts were more probably the result of anti-Western feeling exacerbated by US support of Israel and Britain's backing of US policies in the Middle East.