Security fears left foreign businesses reconsidering whether to stay in Saudi Arabia, while jittery world oil markets opened today with strong price increases in the first significant trading since a terror attack targeting Western oil workers left 22 people dead in the Saudi oil hub.

Saudi security forces stormed a prestige expatriate housing complex where gunmen holed up and took hostages after a shooting dead at least six people at oil company offices in the eastern city of Khobar.

Five people are feared dead after gunmen opened fire today on housing offices of oil companies then taking hostages at a residential compound to use as human shields.

A German man who worked as a caterer for Saudi Arabia’s national airline was shot and killed today by unknown assailants, an Interior Ministry official said.

SAUDI Arabia vowed yesterday to strike with an iron fist at militants who attacked a Saudi Arabian petrochemical site and pledged every effort to protect foreigners, five of whom died in the shooting spree.

The mastermind of a deadly rampage that killed five belonged to a Saudi opposition group in London, according to officials in the Saudi industrial town of Yanbu today.

Saudi Arabia’s US ambassador told Americans in the oil-rich city of Yanbu: “Go home. We cannot protect you”, following the terror attack that killed six foreign workers.

The westerners killed in a gun attack in the Saudi city of Yanbu on Saturday were named today.

Western oil industry workers who lost five colleagues in a Saudi Arabian shooting rampage finalised plans today to pack up and leave the kingdom.

A WESTERN engineering firm yesterday said it was evacuating all 90 foreign staff from the Saudi city of Yanbu after gunmen shot dead five of their colleagues.

Australians will continue working in Saudi Arabia despite an Australian engineer being shot dead in an attack probably linked to al-Qaida, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today.

Two Britons were feared dead today after gunmen opened fire indiscriminately on staff at an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, a company official said.

Six westerners are reported to have been among the casualties of a suicide attack today in a north-western city in Saudi Arabia.