2 U.S. Soldiers Hurt by Gunman Firing at Saudi Shuttle Bus : Terrorism: Attack is first of its kind there. Three other nations report terrorist incidents, and Americans are advised to leave Jordan.

In what U.S. military officials described Monday as a possible terrorist attack, two American soldiers were wounded slightly by flying glass when a gunman fired on a shuttle bus in the port city of Jidda.

The attack, hundreds of miles from the battlefront, raised the specter of American or other allied military personnel in the Middle East becoming targets off the battlefield. Mounting tensions in Jordan already have prompted the U.S. State Department to warn Americans there to leave.

In addition, terrorists on Monday apparently targeted a British Airways office in Jerusalem, a Citibank office in an Athens suburb and a Saudi diplomat in Karachi, Pakistan.

In Jidda, a hotel-bound shuttle bus with three American soldiers aboard was passing a junkyard Sunday night when a gunman opened fire with a 9-millimeter pistol or rifle, officials said.

Maj. Gen. Robert B. Johnston, chief of staff for the allied Central Command, told reporters that attributing the attack to terrorists would be “a reasonable conclusion.”

But no organization has taken credit for the shooting or indicated that “it was a contrived terrorist activity,” Johnston said, and he acknowledged that the attack could have been an individual, “free-lance” act.

Col. Ahmed al-Robayan, a Saudi military spokesman, declined Monday to characterize the incident as a terrorist act, saying such a determination could not be made until the gunman was captured.

“‘It’s a small act and it could happen anywhere,” he said.

Military sources said an Egyptian driver and a Saudi security guard also were aboard the shuttle bus.

Johnston would not describe steps that officials are taking to protect troops from terrorism, but he said “it is a high priority because we do present vulnerable targets. We do everything we can to reduce vulnerability and make sure that the individual serviceman is attuned to the fact that he is never totally safe.”

The incident in Jidda was the first attack of its kind involving Americans in Saudi Arabia since the war against Iraq began.

Since then, Western interests have sustained more than 70 terrorist attacks worldwide, but direct Iraqi involvement has been detected only in attacks in the Philippines, Tanzania and Thailand.

“What we’ve seen so far have been rather amateurish affairs that were probably the work of local enthusiasts rather than trained terrorists,” Frank Brenchley, director of London’s Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism, said in a recent interview.

In Washington, the State Department urged Americans to leave Jordan because of the deteriorating security situation. The department said the advice applied to all private citizens and “non-essential” employees of the U.S. Embassy.

Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said the advice was based on growing anti-American sentiment in Jordan and war-related tensions. She said there was no new threat of specific terrorist action.

“This is not a reflection on our government’s beliefs of the inability of the Jordanian government to protect Americans,” Tutwiler said. “But it is an assessment of the overall situation there concerning . . . some of their population who are not necessarily sympathetic to what we are doing.”

A spokesman for the Jordanian Embassy in Washington said the action was unwarranted.

Tutwiler said about 4,600 Americans are in Jordan. She said the department is urging them to leave by regular commercial transportation.

“The Department of State advises all private U.S. citizens to defer all travel to Jordan,” the official department travel advisory said. “The Department of State has ordered the departure of all non-essential personnel and all dependents from Jordan and has substantially reduced its staff in Amman.

“Embassy operations are sharply curtailed and normal consular operations suspended. The embassy will be able to provide services to U.S. citizens only in emergencies.”

In Jerusalem, arsonists set fire Monday to the British Airways office in the Arab section of the city, apparently as a protest against British participation in the war, police said.

The office was badly damaged, but there were no reports of injuries. Investigators said the office’s front window was broken and flammable material was thrown inside and ignited. No one has taken credit for the incident.

Meanwhile, Athens police dismantled a faulty time bomb hidden in a plastic shopping bag and placed outside a Citibank office in the seaside suburb of Paleo Faliro on Monday. However, officials would not say whether the bomb was linked to recent terrorist attacks in Greece.

The November 17 terrorist group has claimed responsibility for firing antitank missiles at offices of American Express and British Petroleum in Athens. The same organization has taken credit for bombing two Citibank offices, a British bank and the office of the French military attache. No one was injured in any of the attacks, which were carried out over the last two weeks.

In Karachi, police said gunmen fired at the home of a Saudi diplomat on Monday, slightly wounding a guard. Investigators said they would not identify the diplomat for security reasons. The Saudi consulate in Karachi had no immediate comment on the shooting, and no one has claimed responsibility for the incident.

Authorities in Lebanon, meanwhile, said Monday that Walid Khalid, the spokesman for Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, has been released from custody after being arrested at Beirut airport last week for traveling of a forged passport.

After his release, Khalid resumed his activity at his office in Beirut’s Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp, sources at the camp said. Khalid is the official Beirut spokesman for Abu Nidal’s Fatah Revolutionary Council.

Terrorism specialists believe that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s pledge to mount terrorist attacks is no idle threat.

“There’s evidence that the dangerous groups who receive substantial sponsorship in terms of money, training and intelligence from Saddam are in place ready to launch attacks when he gives the word,” said Paul Wilkinson, a terrorism expert at Scotland’s St. Andrews University.

He told a conference in London: “I anticipate that when major hostilities are ended, there will be terrorism over a very long period by embittered, desperate groups which supported the radical Palestinian-Arab cause.”

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this story.