'Grim' outlook for US hostage in Saudi Arabia

SECURITY forces were desperately hunting yesterday for a US hostage facing death within hours at the hands of terrorists in Saudi Arabia.

The outlook for defence contractor Paul Johnson was "grim", according to a US senator who held emergency talks with a Saudi official.

The hostage-takers gave their captive 72 hours to live, from Wednesday, unless al-Qaida hostages were released and westerners left the Arab Peninsula.

Hostage rescue experts have been called in by the authorities in Saudi Arabia.

Security forces there raided a house and mosque in the capital Riyadh yesterday but found no sign of 49-year-old Mr Johnson.

Two senators from Mr Johnson's home state of New Jersey, Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, held crisis talks with Adel al-Jubeir, the foreign policy adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

Speaking after the meeting Mr Lautenberg said: "It's grim."

He said the Saudi authorities said they were "doing everything humanly possible" to rescue Mr Johnson.

He indicated he was not optimistic there would be a successful ending to the hostage crisis.

Yesterday Mr Johnson's family begged the kidnappers to set him free. In a tearful live television appeal Paul Johnson's son, also called Paul, appealed to the Saudi authorities to intervene. He broke down as he pleaded for his father's life.

Mr Johnson, who worked in Saudi Arabia as a helicopter engineer was shown on Tuesday on an Islamic extremist website blindfolded and in the custody of gunmen. "I'm an American out of the US. I work on an Apache helicopter," he said.

He spoke for 25 seconds on the four-and-a-half- minute video recording.

A masked man armed with an automatic weapon identified himself as Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, the self-proclaimed military leader of al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia.