RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Suspected militants killed an American in the Saudi capital on Saturday, shooting him in the back as he parked in his home garage, and the U.S. Embassy said it was searching for an American who was missing.
A purported al-Qaida statement posted on an Islamic Web site late Saturday claimed the terror group had killed one American and kidnapped another in Riyadh. It threatened to treat the captive as U.S. troops treated Iraqi prisoners.
The slaying and apparent abduction were the latest attacks in a campaign of anti-Western violence in the kingdom, believed by many to be aimed at driving out foreigners as a way to sabotage the vital Saudi oil sector.
The U.S. Embassy identified the dead man as Kenneth Scroggs, the third Westerner slain in the kingdom in a week. It did not identify the missing American, but said it was working with Saudi officials to find him.
The al-Qaida statement showed a passport-size photo of a brown-haired man and a Lockheed Martin business card bearing the name Paul M. Johnson. It said he was born in 1955.
The mobile phone listed on the card was switched off, and a call to a second phone number was picked up by a voicemail message by a deep-voiced man who identified himself as Paul Johnson.
The statement said the terror group would deal with Johnson just as “the Americans dealt with our brothers in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib” – a reference to sexual and other alleged abuses of Iraqi and Muslim prisoners by U.S. troops.
The statement also said Johnson is one of four experts in Saudi Arabia working on developing Apache helicopter systems and that the American killed worked in the same industry. It did not identify the slain American but said he was killed at his home.
“Everybody knows that these helicopters are used by the Americans, their Zionist allies and the apostates to kill Muslims, terrorizing them and displacing them in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq,” said the statement.
It said al-Qaida would release a videotape later to show Johnson’s confessions and list its demands.
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