Irishman shot dead in Riyadh.

RIYADH (AFP) - An Irish national was shot dead in Riyadh in the first attack on a Westerner in Saudi Arabia since the mid-June killing of the local chief of the Al-Qaeda terror network. Although the motives of the murder were not immediately clear, the incident appeared to put an end to the lull in attacks which terrorized Western residents of the oil-rich kingdom last spring.

Police “received a report at 5:00 pm (1400 GMT) that a resident holding Irish citizenship was found killed in his office in the premises of a commercial enterprise in Riyadh,” the capital’s police chief said in a terse statement. Authorities are investigating the incident, Abdullah al-Shahrani added.

A Western diplomat told AFP the Irishman was shot four times in his office in an eastern district of the capital.

Dubai-based Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel reported that a gunman burst into the office in the Al-Rawda neighborhood and shot the 63-year-old engineer in the head and chest, apparently with a gun equipped with a silencer. It named the victim as Tony Christopher, who worked for the Rocky Trade and Construction firm.

No further details were immediately available, but the murder resembled some of the other attacks which targeted Western expatriates between early May and mid-June, when Saudi security forces gunned down Al-Qaeda’s local leader Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin.