Gunmen opened fire today at an oil refinery co-owned by Exxon Mobil and the Saudi company SABIC in north-western Saudi Arabia, killing at least two Americans, two Britons, an Australian and a Saudi, company officials and diplomats said this afternoon.
Interior Ministry officials said three attackers also were killed. There was no immediate word on who was behind the shooting.
The attack killed at least two American engineers, one Australian and two Britons, according to an ABB spokesman in Zurich.
He did not identify them, but said all but one of the Britons worked for his oil services company. The second Briton was a subcontractor, he said.
Two American ABB-Lummus employees were wounded in the attack, he said. He wasn't sure how many others were wounded. ABB-Lummus is the energy arm of multinational ABB engineering group.
The European diplomats, who confirmed the five Westerners had died, also said a member of the Saudi national guard was killed. A Saudi police captain was seriously wounded.
The last attack that killed Americans in Saudi was in May 2003, when eight Americans were among 34 people killed in a series of co-ordinated suicide bombings in the capital, Riyadh.
That attack and a November assault on a housing compound that killed 17 people were blamed on the al-Qaida terror network.
In London, the Foreign Office said it could not confirm British deaths, but said British diplomats were travelling to the scene.
The Saudi Interior Ministry said three suspected terrorists and several Saudis and foreigners were killed in the shooting. In its statement, the ministry did not say how many civilians were killed or injured in the attack in Yanbu, 550 miles west of Riyadh, or provide details on nationalities of the foreign
casualties.