Suspected Saudi militant held after shootout

Saudi police arrested a militant after an overnight car chase and shootout in the streets of Riyadh, an Interior Ministry spokesman said today.

Brig. Mansour al-Turki also said a preliminary investigation indicated that terrorists killed a Frenchman who was shot dead in the early hours of Sunday.

Laurent Barbot was shot while driving his car in the al-Tarikh area of Jiddah. An employee of the French defence group Thales, Barbot worked as a technician on projects for the Saudi navy.

“Initial signs indicate that it was an act of terrorism,” al-Turki said. “But we are not ruling out other possibilities.” There have been no arrests so far.

On Sunday night, a gunbattle broke out when police in a patrol car tried to stop a suspicious vehicle in the al-Shafa district of Riyadh, al-Turki said.

Police chased the car, which had three male passengers. The suspects stopped and hijacked two other cars, forcing their passengers out, in an attempt to evade capture, al-Turki said.

The police believe the three suspects were each injured in the shooting. A bystander was lightly wounded.

None of the suspects pursued was detained, but the police arrested a fourth suspected militant in the area, al-Turki said.

There have been a spate of attacks against foreigners in Saudi Arabia by militants determined to drive foreigners out of the country to hurt the economy. The Saudi economy, particularly the oil sector, depends on foreign workers.

On September 15, gunmen shot dead British national Edward Stuart Muirhead-Smith outside a shopping centre in eastern Riyadh. Muirhead-Smith, 55, worked for the British telecommunications corporation Marconi.