RIYADH, May 1: Five Westerners and a Saudi guard were killed when armed men in coastguard uniforms barged into the offices of an engineering firm in the Saudi industrial city of Yanbu on Saturday morning and opened fire at them.
Three 'extremists' were also killed and another was captured in an encounter with security agencies later, an official of the Saudi interior ministry said.
Some reports identified the five dead as two Americans, two Britons and one Australian.
The engineering firm, ABB Lummus, is working on an upgrading project of a petrochemical plant, Yanpet, at Yanbu which hosts several petrochemical projects and refineries. Yanpet is co-owned by Saudi company Sabic and the US Exxon Mobil.
The attack on the offices of ABB Lummus was made at around 7am when the plant starts to work. Most of the employees had just reached their workplaces and a number of others were at the plant gate at the time of the attack.
The interior ministry source confirmed that some foreigners and citizens were killed or wounded in the incident.
The attack was first reported by a website that normally carries news about Saudi Arabia and militant attacks. It said that two militants had killed an American and blown themselves up in Yanbu where Saudi security forces had besieged them.
"Al-Wifaq website has learned that two men wanted by security forces, who killed an American, have blown themselves up after being besieged by security forces a short time ago," said alwifaq.net.
Security was further tightened in Yanbu and Western envoys were reported rushing to the city, some 350km from Jeddah, following the incident.
The news of the incident came amid reports that militants had plotted to hijack a British plane at Riyadh airport, hit Western embassies and attack government buildings with long-range missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, according to a Saudi security document dated April 22.
The document identified the United States, British, Spanish and Italian embassies as possible targets.
Agencies add: Saudi television aired footage of a body slumped in a police car peppered with bullets and a fire-gutted vehicle after the shooting.
The Yanbu attackers shouted "We are the Mujahideen", a media adviser to the Saudi embassy in London, Jamal Kashoggi, quoted an eyewitness as saying. He said this was how Al Qaeda activists in Saudi Arabia described themselves.
Local journalists quoted witnesses as seeing one of the Westerners being dragged through the streets from the back of a car.
Medical sources said 28 Saudis and foreigners were also wounded.
According to ABB spokesman Bjorn Edlund, based in Zurich, "at least three Americans working for the company were killed".
He said two American ABB-Lummus employees were also wounded in the attack.
The European diplomats said a member of the Saudi national guard was killed. A Saudi police captain was seriously wounded, they said on condition of anonymity.
A Canadian diplomat in Riyadh said two Canadian citizens were also hospitalized.
In Washington, US State Department spokeswoman Susan Pittman said two Americans were killed and one was hospitalized.
"At 7:00am on Saturday four men entered the headquarters of a Saudi contractor in Yanbu and fired at random on Saudis and foreigners," the interior ministry said in a statement.
"Security forces chased them and they took refuge in residential areas and hijacked some cars.
"Three of them were killed and a fourth was wounded. There were a number of deaths and injuries among Saudis and foreigners," it added.
Local journalists said there had been more than one attack.
A Western resident told Reuters a pipe-bomb had been thrown at a school in Yanbu.
