Westerners beef up security

2004-06-15 20:22

Riyadh - Westerners in Saudi Arabia are responding to terror attacks by moving to high-security compounds or even to Bahrain, and by pushing for the right to armed private guards, according to diplomats and estate agents.

Western embassies in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, are negotiating with the government for a relaxation of the ban on private security guards carrying firearms, said a Western diplomat, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

Some Westerners have expressed concern that terrorist sympathisers may have infiltrated the Saudi security services, the diplomat said.

Saudi security forces have stepped up their presence in and around Riyadh as they hunt for the kidnappers of Paul Johnson, an American who was abducted on Saturday by a group calling itself al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Johnson, 49, of Stafford Township, New Jersey, was employed by Lockheed Martin and worked on Apache helicopters.

Irish cameraman for the BBC killed

On the day he was seized, Islamic militants shot dead another American, Kenneth Scroggs, from Laconia, New Hampshire, in his garage.

Scroggs was the third Westerner killed in a week, after the shooting of an Irish cameraman for the BBC on June 6 and another American who was killed in his garage on June 8.

Soldiers with automatic rifles guarded government buildings and manned check points in the city on Tuesday.

Other security forces were searching houses suspected of hiding Johnson, said a Saudi official.

The interior ministry set up a hot line to receive information about Johnson or possible terrorist attacks.

"There is no overcrowding at consulates and there is no panic among Westerners to leave, " said a Western diplomat.

More security forces

The US Embassy in Riyadh has advised Americans to leave Saudi Arabia, and Britain has authorised the voluntary departure of its non-essential embassy staff and their families.

An estimated 35 000 Americans have been working in Saudi Arabia. It is not clear how many have left since the terror attacks became more frequent in April.

Western diplomats said on Monday that Americans and others were leaving in response to the violence, but that it could not be described as an exodus.

An estate agent in Riyadh said Westerners were moving from parts of the capital seen as less secure to walled compounds and upscale neighbourhoods with greater security.

"They will feel safer as more security forces are deployed (in those areas)," said the agent.

Foreigners who work in the oil industry, and live on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, have even crossed international borders to sleep soundly.

"Foreigners working in the oil industry have been renting houses in neighbouring Bahrain," a second estate agent said. "They finish their work and come back the next day."

- AP