After Attacks, Americans Urged to Leave Saudi Arabia
The U.S. ambassador Monday urged Americans to leave Saudi Arabia after a weekend shooting rampage killed five Westerners, and an embassy spokeswoman confirmed that the body of an American victim had been “badly mutilated.”
Ambassador James Oberwetter met for an hour with members of Yanbu’s American community at a hotel whose facade is pocked with bullet holes from Saturday’s violence. Police exchanged gunfire outside the hotel with four assailants, all of whom were killed after the attack on offices of ABB Lummus Global, an oil contractor based in Houston and New Jersey.
The Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayif ibn Abdulaziz, said today that the attack was believed to have been carried out by Al Qaeda.
The first of ABB’s 90 employees -- all Europeans -- boarded a van for the Yanbu airport Monday night. A Western diplomat and an ABB executive said all foreign ABB employees and their families would leave by today.
Two Americans, two Britons, an Australian and a Saudi died in the weekend shootings.
ABB identified the dead Americans as Stephen LaGuardia, 62, and Philip Coplen, 53.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
