RIYADH, 4 August 2004 — An Irishman was shot dead yesterday when armed men stormed into his office and began firing machine guns, Irish and Saudi officials said.

A spokeswoman for Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs said the man was killed at about 5 p.m.

“Obviously our consular section (in Dublin) ... and our embassy in Riyadh are involved in the case and are liaising with the Saudi authorities,” she said on condition of anonymity.

She would not give further details, including the man’s name.

It was the second killing of an Irishman in the capital in two months.

A Saudi official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the man was killed when at least two armed men stormed the office of the Saudi-owned Rocky for Trade and Construction and began shooting machine guns. Al-Arabiya satellite television said the slain Irishman was a 63-year-old engineer named Tony Christopher.

The channel said a gunman had burst into his office in the Al-Rawda neighborhood and shot him in the head and chest, apparently with a gun equipped with a silencer.

The Riyadh police chief told the Saudi Press Agency that security officers were investigating the murder. He said police received a call at about 5 p.m. saying the man was dead inside his office.

Police have taken the manager of the company and a Nepalese worker for questioning after the incident. The company is located in east Riyadh close to the office of a committee tasked with settling labor disputes.

On June 6, Irishman Simon Cumbers, 36, a cameraman with the British Broadcasting Corp., was shot and killed while filming a militant’s family home in Riyadh. Security correspondent Frank Gardner, 42, a Briton, was critically wounded in that attack.

Westerners have been the targets of shootings, suicide bombings and kidnappings in the Kingdom in recent months in attacks that are seen as an attempt to undermine the economy, which depends heavily on expatriate work force.

The last terror attack against a Westerner was the kidnapping of American engineer Paul M. Johnson Jr. on June 12 and his beheading six days later. Two other Americans were killed in the week before Johnson’s kidnapping.

The wave of violence in Saudi Arabia began on May 12, 2003, when car bombs targeted three compounds housing foreign workers, killing 35 people, including nine suicide bombers. Since then, the Kingdom has suffered a series of suicide bombings, gunbattles and kidnappings. The attacks have been blamed on groups allied to Al-Qaeda network.