Gunmen kill US citizen in Saudi capital

GUNMEN killed an American in the Saudi capital yesterday, as police launched a probe into the latest murder in the Islamic kingdom.

“The person who was killed was an American,” said a police spokesman. He said next of kin would be notified before the man’s identity was released.

Alerted around 2:30pm (11.30 Irish time) to “shooting in a house in the east of Riyadh”, security forces went to the scene where “they saw the house was inhabited by an American national, who was killed in the incident”, the police chief said.

The victim’s US colleague who lives on the top floor of the villa, said he had heard a shooting and went downstairs to investigate, only to find the man dead.

The neighbour said the family of the dead man, who worked for the Vinnell Corporation whose activities include military training, was not living with him in the kingdom.

A witness in the area said the American was followed from a nearby clinic to his home by two or three gunmen, who shot him inside his house before fleeing the scene.

A resident of the neighbourhood had earlier said the American was gunned down leaving a medical centre. “A Westerner was the target of a shooting as he left a clinic” in the district, the resident said.

The killing came two days after suspected al-Qaida gunmen shot dead an Irish cameraman and gravely wounded a BBC correspondent in Riyadh as they were filming near the home of a former wanted militant who was himself shot dead by security forces in the same area last December.