Militants Kill 16 in Attacks at Saudi Oil Sites

CAIRO —  Gunmen believed to be Islamic militants attacked two oil industry compounds in eastern Saudi Arabia on Saturday morning, killed 16 people, including an American, then fled to a posh resort complex where they took at least 50 people hostage. Saudi commandos freed some of the captives this morning.

Dozens of hostages, mostly Americans and Europeans, were rescued after a grueling day in the besieged compound in the eastern city of Khobar. The attack was the latest in a campaign of mounting violence by Islamists who have recently targeted the kingdom’s oil industry.

Saudi forces stormed the complex shortly after daybreak today. Television footage showed them leaping from helicopters onto a rooftop inside the walled complex as fresh gunfire erupted when the troops launched their raid.

As many as seven gunmen were reportedly captured within a few hours, but it wasn’t clear whether the rescue mission was over. Two of the gunmen were reported killed.

Seven Americans were freed, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, told Fox News. Two of them were wounded, he said.

Overnight, hundreds of Saudi security forces surrounded the high-rise building in which the gunmen and their captives were holed up in the palm-fringed walled compound, which consists of resort hotels and expatriate housing. Gunfire rattled through the neighborhood throughout Saturday and after dark, according to reports from Saudi Arabia.

The dead reportedly included Britons, Filipinos and Saudi guards, as well as an Egyptian schoolboy whose father worked for one of the oil companies. The Saudi newspaper Al Riyadh quoted security officials as saying that at least 16 people were killed, including seven Saudi security agents.

It was the second attack this month on the kingdom’s oil industry, which supports the beleaguered ruling family and supplies more oil than that of any other nation to the global market. Radical Islamists in the kingdom have launched a series of suicide bombings and attacks against the ruling House of Saud, vowing to topple a government they consider corrupt and apostate for sheltering foreign workers and American troops.

Militants have chosen a particularly sensitive time to target Saudi Arabia’s vast oil industry, which is dependent on the labor of about 6 million foreign workers, including many Americans.

The attack in the kingdom’s oil-rich east comes as global oil prices have climbed to about $40 a barrel. Fears that Saudi Arabia might not be able to protect its oil fields from Islamist insurgents, along with instability in Iraq and increased global demand for oil, are blamed in part for the high cost of crude oil.

“Those guys realize how painful this could become for us, for our economy,” Jamal Khashoggi, an advisor to the Saudi ambassador in London, said in a telephone interview.

“We never thought we’d have to explain to the world that Saudi Arabia is secure. We took this for granted. Now we are having to explain the notion that people are being targeted for being foreigners. It’s scary.”

The attack began about 7:30 a.m., when four gunmen “opened fire randomly” at an oil company headquarters and a residential complex, according to a statement from the Saudi Interior Ministry that was carried on the kingdom’s official news service.

Ramzi Khouri, a reporter for the Saudi Gazette, said the gunmen looked young and wore combat fatigues.

The gunmen opened fire at a compound of offices and apartments for the Arab Petroleum Investments Corp., or Apicorp, and at the Petroleum Center building, which is home to firms from around the world.

After a shootout with Saudi security forces, the gunmen fled down the street to the Oasis resort compound. Along the way, they encountered a car carrying the Egyptian boy and other children to school and opened fire, according to Egypt’s Middle East News Agency.

“The terrorists opened heavy fire on the car, killing Rami and setting fire to the car,” the boy’s father, identified only as Samir, told the news agency.

Saudi television and the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya showed images of shattered cars abandoned on the road with their doors open. Windows were blasted out; seats were soaked with blood. A blood-smeared mobile telephone lay in one car.

Gunmen tossed a body from the resort building, mutilated the remains of some of their victims and dragged a corpse down the street, tied to the bumper of a car, according to Saudi newspaper reports.

“There’s been so much conflicting information,” said a U.S. diplomat who requested anonymity. “We’re not confirming anything at the moment.”

In the Oasis, a luxury compound for foreigners, gunmen seized five Lebanese and later released them, Lebanon’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia told Associated Press.

“The gunmen barged into the homes of the Lebanese at Oasis compound and took them hostage,” the envoy, Ahmed Chammat, said. “They were being pursued by Saudi police, so they went into the compound and took hostages.”

Several reports indicated that the gunmen were trying to sort out and release Muslim hostages. In the past, militants have been fiercely criticized in the Arab world for killing Saudis and other Arabs in such attacks.

“Ambulances have been going in and out of the compound all day, and we have been hearing lots of gunfire,” a witness, Mohammed Sweidan, who lives nearby, told Reuters.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Joanne Moore said Saturday: “The attack on one compound is still ongoing, and we have no indication of who these people are or what organization they might belong to. At least one American citizen has been injured, and at least one American citizen has been killed.”

The attack, which came as Saudi Arabia was pushing OPEC to increase oil production to help lower the price of crude, was intended to harm the Saudi economy, Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler, said Saturday.

“We will continue to chase this deviant group until we eradicate them,” he told the Saudi Press Agency. He said at least 10 people had been killed.

Despite the attack, Egyptian economist Essam Montasser said fears of terrorism in Saudi oil fields were “greatly exaggerated.”

Moreover, he said, the Saudi government could curtail extremism by carrying through with democratic reforms.

“Remember that Saudi Arabia is awash with money now; it’s simply awash,” Montasser said. “If Saudi Arabia would take on a realistic reform program, they could calm things down immensely, but the royal family is divided itself over reform.”

Stability in the kingdom appears to be deteriorating, and violence against foreigners remains intense. About a week ago, a German man who worked as a chef for the Saudi national airline was shot to death in Riyadh, the capital. Authorities are investigating the shooting.

Earlier this month, Islamist gunmen stormed the offices of Houston-based ABB Lummus Global Inc. in Yanbu, killed at least five people and dragged the body of a Western man through the streets.

The May 1 attack rattled foreign workers, and many Americans reportedly heeded State Department calls to leave the kingdom.

Militants “don’t want a modern Saudi Arabia. They don’t want an open Saudi Arabia. They want to Talibanize the country,” said Khashoggi, the advisor to the ambassador. “They want to overthrow the social and political system and lock up Saudi Arabia in the Middle Ages.”

A statement posted on an Islamic website early Saturday referred to the latest attack as “a gift to al-Moqrin and his heroic brothers,” Associated Press reported. AbdulAziz al Moqrin is believed to lead Al Qaeda operations on the Arabian Peninsula.

The text was later deleted, and there was no way to know whether it was a claim of responsibility. Later, Islamic websites posted claims of responsibility from groups calling themselves “Al Quds Brigade” and “Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula” for the deaths of the “crusaders.”

The compounds targeted Saturday included offices for oil companies from around the world: Lukoil Holdings of Russia, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp.; Apicorp; and a joint venture among Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Total SA and Saudi Aramco, Associated Press reported. Schlumberger of Houston and Aveva of Cambridge, Britain, were also believed to keep offices in the compounds.

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Times staff writer Mary Curtius in Washington contributed to this report.