UPDATE:
Qaeda Attack Kills at Least 9 Saudis, 7 Foreigners
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5293280
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/29/saudi.shooting/index.html
(CNN) -- At least six people were killed and an unspecified number of hostages taken after gunmen attacked complexes housing oil workers in the Saudi Arabian city of Khobar, police said.
Officers said they were pursuing the fleeing suspects with a helicopter and exchanged fire with them near residential areas. They said they feared the death toll could rise.
Police said the shootings took place on Saturday outside two residential buildings and an office compound used by APICORP (Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation) in Khobar, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of the capital, Riyadh.
Authorities told CNN some of the gunmen took up to five people hostage. Unconfirmed reports later said some of these hostages were released.
Authorities could not confirm the nationalities of the victims, saying they knew Saudis and foreigners were among the dead.
Journalists on the scene said they also saw two wounded people being taken away by an ambulance.
The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh declined to say whether any Americans were believed to have been caught up in the latest attack in the kingdom.
"We have received reports of an incident, and we are investigating it," an embassy official in Riyadh told The Associated Press.
British officials were traveling to Khobar to check rumors a British national was killed, according to the Foreign Office in London.
Saudi Arabia has been cracking down on terrorists since attacks on compunds in Riyadh in 2003. The government says dozens of terror attacks in the kingdom -- many blamed on al Qaeda -- have been foiled as a result.
Earlier this month, Swiss engineering company ABB evacuated its foreign workers from Yanbu in northwestern Saudi Arabia after gunmen stormed ABB's oil refinery compound on May 1 and killed five Westerners -- two Americans, two British, and one Australian.
Saudi officials said those who carried out the May 1 attack -- all four of whom were also killed in the exchange of fire -- were on a list of wanted militants, many of whom had been linked to al Qaeda and all of whom were from Arab nations.
And in April attackers bombed a security building in Riyadh, killing five people and injuring 148 more.