Raid Qusti • Arab News

RIYADH, 14 June 2004 — Saudi and US authorities are working closely to locate an American engineer who Al-Qaeda said it had kidnapped, security sources said yesterday.

The kidnapping added a new twist to Al-Qaeda’s campaign to drive Westerners from the Kingdom as Western airlines and embassies reacted to the escalating security threat.

Riyadh’s police chief denied reports that a body of a Westerner had been found in the streets of the capital. Earlier yesterday diplomats and security sources said a body, thought to be that of a Westerner, had been found dumped near a building.

Some reports linked the body to the man Al-Qaeda sympathizers claimed they had kidnapped.

“We are working with local authorities to find him,” a US Embassy spokeswoman said.

A statement purporting to be from Al-Qaeda threatened to treat the abducted American as US troops treated Iraqi prisoners — a reference to sexual and other abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The statement, posted late Saturday on the Sawt Al-Jihad Islamist website, showed various identification papers of a brown-haired man with a mustache. A PADI diving certificate identified him as Paul M. Johnson.

A car belonging to Johnson was found Saturday near Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, security officials said. Reports had said the car was booby-trapped and later caught fire.

Sources said that Johnson has been working with Lockheed Martin for the past six years. He is one of four experts in Saudi Arabia working on developing Apache helicopter systems.

“Everybody knows that these helicopters are used by the Americans, their Zionist allies… to kill Muslims, terrorizing them and displacing them in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq,” the Al-Qaeda statement said.

A source from Lockheed Martin Middle East Services told Arab News Johnson was married and lived with his wife. Senior company staff visited his wife yesterday to offer their support.

Most Western employees of the company had already sent their families home.

Word of the kidnapping came hours after another American, identified by the US Embassy as Kenneth Scroggs — not Saracuzi, as reported earlier — was gunned down here. The Al-Qaeda statement also claimed responsibility for the shooting.

Police, hunting for militants, said they sealed off two areas in Riyadh and arrested two suspects. It was not immediately clear whether the action was linked to the killing and kidnapping.

The first was arrested in the notorious Al-Suwaidi district on Al-Balad Al-Ameen Street, while the other was caught in Maseef district at noon, sources told Arab News.

Police took the computer of the second suspect, who is believed to have stored or exchanged information related to the latest terrorist incidents, they added.

In November last year, militants engaged in a gunbattle with police on Al-Balad Al-Ameen Street in which one terrorist was killed and eight security men were injured.

It was not immediately clear whether yesterday’s arrests were related to the fatal shooting on June 6 of BBC cameraman Simon Cumbers and wounding of security correspondent Frank Gardner, Tuesday’s killing of US contractor Robert Jordan or Scrogg’s death. The assailants in all three incidents got away.

The events have rattled tens of thousands of Western expatriates in the Kingdom, prompting fears of mass exodus.

The US Embassy issued a warden message yesterday urging citizens to take extra precautions against what it said were carefully planned attacks.

They “appear to have involved extensive planning and preparation and were likely preceded by extensive pre-attack surveillance. Often, this pre-attack surveillance can be detected,” the message said.

It detailed a number of measures that citizens should take to ensure their safety, including being unpredictable in work and social schedules.

The British Embassy announced it was authorizing the voluntary departure of nonessential staff and their families, though a spokesman said this was not a response to Saturday’s events but rather was “the result of consideration over the last week.”

British Airways and Germany’s Lufthansa said they no longer permitted staff operating on flights to Saudi Arabia to stay there overnight.

BA, which operates flights to Riyadh and Jeddah, said the rule came into force last Wednesday. BA crews operating the airline’s two routes from London will fly as far as Kuwait where replacement crews will take over. BA planes will not be left grounded overnight in Saudi Arabia.

German airline Lufthansa has also stopped its air crews from staying overnight. Spokesman Wolfgang Weber cited the “security situation” for the new practice, which he said was already put into effect a few weeks ago.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said his government was working side by side with the Kingdom to defeat terror.

“Clearly this is a dangerous time for Saudi Arabia and we’re working with them and cooperating with them in every way we can to defeat these terrorists,” Powell told NBC.

A videotape posted yesterday on a website attributed to Al-Qaeda shows what it claims to be the murder of US national Robert Jacob on Tuesday. Two men are seen chasing a Western-dressed man who screams: “Wait, wait! No, no!” Seconds later some 10 gunshots ring out as the man falls to the ground. The tape then shows the two men rushing to the body, with one appearing to slit the victim’s throat.

— Mohammed Rasooldeen and Javid Hassan contributed to this report