JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — Attackers sprayed gunfire inside a Saudi oil contractor’s office yesterday, killing at least five Westerners — including two Americans — and wounding at least 25 others.
Police killed four gunmen in a shootout after a bloody car chase, during which the attackers dragged the naked body of one victim behind their getaway car.
One of the attackers killed reportedly was on the Saudi kingdom’s list of most-wanted terrorists, many of whom are suspects in last year’s suicide attacks on foreign housing compounds in the capital, Riyadh. The attacks were blamed on al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden’s terror network.
Three of the gunmen worked at the contractor’s office in the industrial city of Yanbu, 220 miles north of the Red Sea city of Jidda. They used their key cards to enter the building and sneak another attacker through an emergency gate, according to an Interior Ministry source quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency.
Witnesses said police engaged in a shootout with the gunmen outside a Holiday Inn before overpowering them on a downtown street. The Interior Ministry said police killed three attackers and wounded a fourth, who later died.
“Using different arms, they started firing at the offices of the company’s personnel before leaving the scene in a hurry to begin attacking a residential compound,” the agency quoted the source as saying, giving no further details.
The Interior Ministry said the gunmen walked into the offices and “randomly shot at Saudi and foreign employees.”
The offices are across the street from a petrochemicals plant co-owned by ExxonMobil and the Saudi company SABIC.
The Saudi Press Agency report said two Americans, two Britons, an Australian and a Saudi national guardsman were killed. A European diplomat said a second Australian also died, but it was not possible to confirm that. Two Saudi security guards also were reported killed.
The two Americans killed were engineers for ABB-Lummus, the energy arm of multinational engineering company ABB. A British ABB employee, a British contractor and an Australian employee were also killed, spokesman Bjorn Edlund said from Zurich.
The last attack that killed Americans in Saudi Arabia was in May 2003, when coordinated suicide bombings at Riyadh housing compounds killed 34 persons, including eight Americans. Another Riyadh suicide assault, in November, killed 17 persons.
There was no word on the motive behind yesterday’s shootings, but U.S. officials warned in recent weeks of possible attacks against foreigners in Saudi Arabia, an important U.S. ally.
Intelligence has suggested that al Qaeda wanted to strike at Saudi oil interests, and bin Laden — a Saudi exile — has called for the overthrow of the Saudi royal family and questioned its Islamic credentials.
The U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James C. Oberwetter, condemned the attacks and offered condolences to the families of the victims.
“The United States appreciates everything the Saudi authorities are doing to fight terrorism, including here in the kingdom,” Mr. Oberwetter said.
Crown Prince Abdullah, speaking on Saudi television, said: “The kingdom will eliminate terrorism, no matter how long it takes.”
Later, the Saudi Press Agency quoted Prince Abdullah as telling a gathering of princes in Jidda: “Zionism is behind terrorist actions in the kingdom. I can say that I am 95 percent sure of that.”
He said Zionism had misled “some of our sons,” but did not elaborate. Anti-Israeli sentiment runs high in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Saudi TV footage showed one victim lying in the bloody front seat of a sports utility vehicle, his leg dangling out an open door with a rifle nearby and bullets on the floor. He appeared to be wearing a security officer’s uniform.
After opening fire in the office, the attackers tied the body of one victim to the back of a stolen car before fleeing, according to a witness who, like all residents reached in Yanbu, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Web site of the English-language Saudi Gazette reported that the attackers stripped the man naked before tying him to the getaway car and dragging him along a road. The newspaper showed a photograph of one attacker lying in a pool of blood in the middle of a road wearing only black trousers and surrounded by a crowd of Saudi bystanders in white robes.
Mohamed Ghamdi, the Gazette’s editor, said the dead man was Abdullah Saud Abu-Nayan al-Sobaie, No. 10 on a list of the kingdom’s 26 most-wanted terrorists. Police officials couldn’t confirm that al-Sobaie was among those killed.
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