British Expatriates Flee Saudi Arabia

The number of British expatriates in Saudi Arabia has dropped from 30,000 to 20,000 in the past 12 months in response to beheadings, shootings and other attacks by al-Qaida, a British official said yesterday.

But the official said that though further attacks were expected, the Saudi government was getting the better of al-Qaida.

A joint British-Saudi conference is being held at the Foreign Office today to discuss the modest internal reforms under way in the kingdom.

Although the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia is no longer as strong as in the past, Britain is seeking to maintain close ties with the Saudi government and to support its reform initiatives.

The official said cooperation between Saudi intelligence and its US and British counterparts had significantly improved and the Saudi government was passing on detailed information about the shooting of the BBC correspondent Frank Gardner and other attacks on Britons last year. The Foreign Office is planning to relay that information to Mr Gardner and to the relatives of those killed in the attacks.

He said Mr Gardner, and his cameraman Simon Cumbers, who was killed, were spotted by al-Qaida activists as they filmed in Riyadh in June last year. He said that the attackers included "one particular madman" and forensic evidence, including the weapons used, linked the attack with others carried out by al-Qaida.

The British official estimated the strength of al-Qaida in the kingdom in scores rather than hundreds.

He said the counter-terrorist campaign, led by Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, the son of the interior minister, had scored several successes including the deaths of seven members of al-Qaida in the autumn. He added that internet chatter, which he regarded as an important source of intelligence, indicated the group was suffering.

But the Saudi government is worried about possible "cross-fertilisation" between activists in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Saudis fighting in Iraq with the insurgents, estimated by the official to be in "scores or low hundreds", could be a source of fresh recruits for al-Qaida.

British Airways, which flies four flights a week to Jeddah and three to Riyadh, is to suspend all these flights from March 27 because of a fall in demand as a result of the wave of attacks.

A BA spokesman said yesterday: "The routes do not currently make a profitable contribution to our business."