RIYADH, 7 June 2004 — The BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner was critically injured and his cameraman Simon Cumbers was killed yesterday when they came under fire in a Riyadh neighborhood notorious for militants.
The two-man television crew were attacked at 5.40 p.m. while they were filming the house of Ibrahim Al-Rayyes, a wanted terrorist gunned down in a shootout with security forces last year in the capital’s Suwaidi district.
Gardner, 42, a fluent Arabic speaker and formerly the BBC’s Middle East correspondent, was rushed to Eiman Hospital, where he was deemed too critically injured to move further. A mobile trauma unit was taken to the hospital and sources said that the reporter was in “very critical condition.”
The BBC confirmed Gardner was injured in the attack and his Irish cameraman Cumbers, 36, was killed.
BBC Director of News Richard Sambrook said: “Our thoughts are with the families of Simon and Frank tonight. We are in touch with them and offering them all the support that we can.”
A British Embassy spokesman said the British ambassador was at the hospital.
A witness said the two journalists were driving a red Lexus jeep with a Saudi driver filming the Al-Rayyes house.
The Interior Ministry said in a statement unknown men fired at one British and one Irish national in “a poor district of Riyadh”, resulting in the death of one and the wounding of the other.
“The incident is being investigated by security authorities,” the police chief in Riyadh added.
The attack came a week after Al-Qaeda militants killed 22 people, 19 of them foreigners, in a shooting and hostage-taking spree in the eastern city of Alkhobar. They included Briton Michael Hamilton.
The Suwaidi district in south Riyadh is the home of 15 of the 26 most wanted terrorists in the Kingdom, including the leader of the group in Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin.
Security sources said the gunmen, who were in a fully shaded black jeep, fled after the shooting. The two were behind Al-Razna market at the time of the attack, on their way to Al-Rayyes’ house.
Witnesses said Gardner kept aloof from the jeep after it came under fire but the gunmen followed and fired several bullets at him. “The terrorists fled the area thinking that Gardner was dead as one shot had hit his head,” they said.
One terrorist fell from the jeep as they made their escape, they added.
Police set up roadblocks and patrols across the capital after the attack.
Arab News has learned that a Saudi working for the Ministry of Information’s foreign media division who accompanied the journalists was unhurt. He was taken to Al-Manfouha police station.
The source added the journalists had not sought permission from the Ministry of Interior, which had no prior knowledge of their intention to visit a district notorious for frequent gunbattles between suspected militants and police since a crackdown on Al-Qaeda sympathizers started last year.
Police believe the Information Ministry man helped the journalists find the location at his own initiative.
Al-Rayyes figured sixth on a list of 26 wanted terrorist suspects and was gunned down on Dec. 8 by security forces on a tip-off from a Saudi national.
Police found a machine gun, three pistols with live ammunition and counterfeit documents at the house.
In November, Al-Suwaidi was the scene of an overnight siege in which one terrorist was gunned down and eight security men wounded. At least five suspects were detained after massive security engagement.
A low-income neighborhood whose residents are described as “conservative” — mainly migrants from the villages surrounding Riyadh — Al-Suwaidi with a population of around half a million is one of Riyadh’s biggest districts.
Arab News staff were in shock as Gardner had been due to meet its editor in chief, who describes him as a personal friend, at the Riyadh bureau later in the week.
— With input from Roger Harrison, Muneef Al-Safouki and Sousan Al-Humaidan
