YANBU, Saudi Arabia – The U.S. ambassador traveled to this Saudi oil-industry city Monday with a simple message for the gathered Americans: Go home. We cannot protect you.
Huddled in a meeting room in a Holiday Inn still pocked with bullet holes after the latest in a string of attacks on Westerners killed two Americans and four others, many said they would heed his words.
The first to go were among the 90 foreign employees of ABB Lummus Global Inc., a Houston-based oil contractor whose offices were attacked Saturday by four gunmen trying to encourage Saudis to join the resistance against the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
The first ABB employees – all Europeans – boarded a van for the Yanbu airport Monday night.
“Money is money, but it’s not worth your life,” said Armando Rosiglioni, 63, of Venice, Italy, who arrived in Yanbu 10 days ago on a three-month contract. “I don’t want to take a stupid risk.”
He said a charter flight would take the employees to the Red Sea port of Jiddah, where they were to take commercial flights to their destinations today.
People who attended the meeting said Ambassador James Oberwetter spoke bluntly. His message was, “It is time for us to pack our bags and go home. … We cannot protect you here,” said a teacher at a local American school. A colleague nodded in agreement.
“I’m very, very frightened,” the teacher said. “We still don’t know whether we are going to stay or not, but I think it’s really time for us to leave.”
Saudi Arabia’s interior minister said early today that al-Qaida was likely responsible for the attack.
The violence began Saturday when four men sprayed ABB’s offices with gunfire, then tied the body of one victim to the bumper of a car and headed for the Ibn Hayyan Secondary Boys School. Shaken Saudi schoolchildren recounted how the attackers summoned them with gunfire to watch the body being dragged.
Those killed were Americans Stephen LaGuardia, 62, and Philip Coplen, 53; Britons Michael Hardy, 57, and Michael McGillen, 52; and Australian Anthony Mason, 57, ABB said.
The attack ended with gunbattles as police gave chase. All four attackers – who police said were Saudi brothers – were killed.
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