RIYADH, 21 February 2003 — A British national who worked for British Aerospace (BAE) here was killed when a Saudi man opened fire on him in his car at a traffic light yesterday.

An Interior Ministry official identified the attacker as Saud ibn Ali ibn Nasser, a 30-year-old Yemen-born naturalized Saudi working as a Toyota car salesman in the capital.

He was arrested in possession of the murder weapon after a massive police hunt, the official added without disclosing a motive for the attack.

The shooting took place at 4.45 p.m. and the Briton was killed instantly.

Robert Denis, 37, had been working as a commercial officer at BAE. He was married and lived with his wife and two children in a residential compound.

John Lawley, a BAE spokesman, said security had recently been increased at both the BAE head office and the compound where most BAE workers live, and near where yesterday’s shooting took place.

News of the shooting sent shockwaves through the 30,000-strong British expat community here.

Last night the US Embassy updated its security advice in light of the latest attack, urging American nationals in the Kingdom to consider leaving. The British Embassy said it will be issuing new advice soon.

In addition to a British BAE employee shot at in Riyadh on Feb. 6, an Australian working for the company was attacked a week earlier in the garrison town of Khamis Mushayt.

Last June, another Australian employee of BAE in the northern garrison town of Tabuk was fired on by a sniper who had been lying in wait outside a BAE residential compound. All three previously targeted workers were unharmed.

BAE has been in the Kingdom for more than 30 years and has won huge defense contracts.

An unrelated string of bombings against Westerners has been blamed by the Saudi authorities on turf wars between rival gangs fighting for control of the black market in alcohol here.

Last June, British banker Simon John Vinesse was killed when a bomb exploded in his Land Rover Discovery in Riyadh.

Two bombings in Riyadh in late 2000 killed a Briton and injured four others. A Scottish man was injured in an explosion in Alkhobar, in the Eastern Province, in December 2000.

In March 2001, a Briton and an Egyptian were injured in a bombing outside a large downtown Riyadh bookstore. And in May 2001, an American was seriously injured in Alkhobar when the package he was opening exploded in his face.