Hostage gunmen routed

By BRIDGET CARTER and AGENCIES

Saudi commandos leaped from helicopters yesterday to rescue most of 50 hostages held by suspected al Qaeda militants for 24 hours at a luxury expatriate housing compound in an Arabian oil production centre.

The hostages had been seized after a shooting rampage that killed 16 people, including an American and a 10-year-old boy.

Eleven people, including two of the militants, were reported dead after the rescue in Khobar.

One of the rescued, Nijar Hijazin, said the kidnappers cut the throats of nine hostages who tried to escape during the night.

The four gunmen, aged 18 to 25 and wearing military vests, grabbed Abu Hashem, an Iraqi with a US passport, in front of his home in the Oasis compound in Khobar but let him go when he told them he was a Muslim.

"Don't be afraid. We won't kill Muslims even if you are an American," he quoted them as saying.

A purported al Qaeda statement claimed responsibility for the attack.

The group has repeatedly vowed to rid the Arabian peninsula of "infidels".

Some New Zealand residents in the city of Khobar, in the kingdom's oil production hub, took shelter just 50m away as events unfolded.

The group leader and six other gunmen were arrested.

The attack is the second deadly assault against the Saudi oil industry and a Saudi security official said it was among attacks targeting US companies.

The New Zealand ambassador in Saudi Arabia, Jim Howell, said that apart from five people, who were not residents of the compound, embassy staff had contacted all New Zealanders listed in the region. "We have talked to police and there is no reason to have any fears for them and some have left the country."

Saudi Arabia is home to several thousand New Zealanders and some are now jittery about their safety.

The militants, wearing military-style uniforms, had at first sprayed gunfire inside two oil company office compounds in Khobar, 400km northeast of Riyadh near the Gulf coast.

They then retreated into a high-rise in the Oasis residential compound, where they took hostage up to 60 people, mainly Westerners.

Saudi security forces stormed the walled complex and surrounded the attackers on the sixth floor of a building, a police officer said.

After little activity overnight, three security forces helicopters arrived just after sunrise and dropped off commandos.

Moderate gunfire, which had been heard sporadically overnight, rang out again.

New Zealander Paul Harrison, who lives about 5km from the Oasis compound, heard the gunfire.

"From the outside of my villa, at 5am, I could hear small-calibre and large-calibre fire," he said.

"I also heard helicopters flying over my compound, most likely travelling from the Oasis compound, back to the airbase."

Mr Harrison, who lives in the area with his wife and two preschool children, works at an airbase for a British company doing contract work for the Saudi Arabian Defence Force.

He was alerted to the shootings at his work around 8am, then drove home around 3.30pm to find that his compound was in lockdown mode and no one was allowed to leave.

Company management said he was expected to return for normal duties the next day.

"Company management didn't really tell us much more than our wives had heard on BBC world news," he said.

"The company line is that we are all expected to go to work and that was issued last night."

The hostage drama has created anxiety among the 216 New Zealanders living in the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia.

Andrew Trevis, a cheese plant manager for a Saudi-owned food company in Al Kharj, said the wider expatriate community were concerned about recent attacks.

A German national was shot in Riyadh last week.

"The worrying factor is that Saudi authorities claimed to have stopped 90 per cent of the attacks before they have happened," Mr Trevis said.

The attack is expected to send international oil prices soaring at a time when the industry is facing a potential crisis. One firm predicted a litre of 91-octane petrol could reach $1.30 in NZ within months.

A New Zealand health worker in Dhahran, Trish Maru, said the New Zealand Embassy staff had been "fantastic" and "quick off the mark" in accounting for all New Zealanders on their lists.

- Additional reporting: Elizabeth Binning