Brit Broadcasting Conservatism

The "terrorist" murder of a French citizen in Jeddah and another shoot-out on Monday between suspected Islamist militants and security forces in the Saudi capital have again spotlighted the terrorism battle being waged in the kingdom, diplomats said.

The latest gunbattle ended early Monday with the Interior Ministry reporting the arrest of a suspected militant.

It followed a police patrol intercepting a suspect car as it "sped out of a site in Riyadh's Al-Shifa district," the official told the SPA news agency.

He said "no citizens or security men were injured," but security sources and witnesses said that an Asian taxi-driver was hit during the exchange.

Less than 24 hours earlier, a gunman shot dead Laurent Barbot, a 45-year-old employee of French defense electronics firm Thales, in the commercial capital of Jeddah.

That attack was the second on a Westerner in Saudi Arabia in 10 days, and the first targeting a French national since a deadly wave of violence erupted here in May 2003 blamed on Al-Qaeda.

# posted by Andrew Gawthorpe @ 11:18 PM