A Frenchman was shot dead in the Saudi city of Jeddah today in the second such killing this month by suspected al Qaeda militants.
Police in the al-Zahra district of the Red Sea port city said the shooting occurred as the victim was getting into his car outside a supermarket.
An identity card issued by the French consulate in Jeddah and shown to
Reutersby hospital sources identified him as a Frenchman, Mr Laurent Barbot (41). They said the card was found on the man, who was dead on arrival with two gunshot wounds, one to the chest.
The French Foreign Ministry said it could not confirm the man's identity but said he worked for a major French company.
A Saudi security official told Reuters militants might be behind the shooting - the first such fatal attack on a Westerners in the cosmopolitan Red Sea city of Jeddah which has been relatively immune to al Qaeda attacks.
Saudi Arabia's rulers believe they have broken the back of an al Qaeda insurgency by waging a security crackdown recently, killing and arresting militants after 17 months of suicide bombings and bloody clashes.
But analysts say renewed shooting of Westerners this month shows that militants, weakened by the crackdown which eliminated many of their top leaders, weapons supplies and infrastructure, can still strike their favoured targets.