RIYADH, 16 September 2004 — Suspected terrorists gunned down a Briton near a major supermarket in the eastern part of Riyadh yesterday.

The victim was identified as Edward Smith, 50. He worked for Marconi Telecommunications Corporation, which provides consultancy services to the National Guard.

The incident occurred around 2.45 p.m. in the parking lot of Max Discount Center on Khurais Road in Al-Naseem district.

A source told Arab News that police were looking for two Saudis seen fleeing the area in a white Toyota Tercel. The source added that the Briton who was in his car in the parking lot of the supermarket, was shot four times — twice in the head and twice in the chest. Smith had come to the market driving a Ford Focus.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends and colleagues of the Briton killed today in Riyadh,” British Ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles said in a statement.

“They should know — and the terrorists must know — that his murder will only make the British government more determined to stand with the Saudi government and people in their battle against senseless terror of this kind,” he added.

One eyewitness said he suspected the act to be linked with terrorism. “There is no doubt that this is a terrorist act. These killers want to show the world that our country is unstable,” he said. “But they will fail,” he added.

Police ringed the area looking for the killers as Smith’s body was removed from the scene in a Red Crescent ambulance. Preliminary investigations were conducted by the security authorities and forensic experts who arrived on the scene soon after the shooting.

There has been a spate of attacks against foreigners in Saudi Arabia by militants.

In early August, two armed men stormed the office of the Saudi-owned Rocky for Trade and Construction and killed an Irishman, Tony Christopher, a 63-year-old engineer. The gunmen 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.

Paul Johnson, 49, who was working as an engineer for Lockheed Martin in Riyadh, was abducted on June 17 and five days later he was beheaded by the terrorists. The massive hunt for Johnson’s captors in the capital culminated in the killing of two wanted terrorists including the Al-Qaeda chief in Saudi Arabia Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin.

A week earlier, on June 12, Kenneth Scroggs, a US building contractor, was shot dead by unknown gunmen in his garage in Riyadh. Scroggs, 55, was working for Advanced Electronics Company.

The American came under fire from a car with two passengers as he drove his light green Toyota Camry into the garage of his home in Qalaat Ayyoub Street in Dhubbat neighborhood of the Al-Malaz district. The assailants jumped out of a Red Nissan Maxima and shot at Scroggs, spraying bullets through the rear window.

Robert Jacobs, another American, was shot dead at the entrance to his house on June 8. He suffered nine bullet wounds to the head.

The victim worked for Vinnell Corp., a US defense contractor.

Seven Vinnell employees were among the 35 people who died last year in a suicide attack on a Riyadh housing compound. Vinnell is involved in training the National Guard.

On June 6, BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner was critically injured and his cameraman Simon Cumbers was killed when they came under fire in a Riyadh neighborhood notorious for terrorists.

On May 22, a German national, Jonathan Hermann Bengler, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Riyadh while leaving Arab National Bank.

On May 1, five foreigners were killed in an attack on a petrochemical site in Yanbu. On May 29, gunmen opened fire in separate attacks on compounds housing offices of oil companies in Alkhobar, killing at least 22 people in a hostage-taking drama. Three Westerners were among the dead.

Last November, 17 people died when suicide bombers struck at a Riyadh housing compound occupied mainly by Arab expats.