Britain on Sunday allowed junior diplomats and all dependents to leave Saudi Arabia after suspected al Qaeda extremists killed an American and abducted another in an escalation of their campaign to drive Westerners out of the oil-rich kingdom.
London warned more terror was on the way as authorities here investigated the presumed kidnapping of a US aeronautics engineer, the latest in a stream attacks which have spread fear among the Western expatriate community.
A Western diplomat said the body of a man was found in Riyadh on Sunday but it might not be that of the abducted American.
In US television interviews, US Secretary of State Colin Powell praised Saudi Arabia's efforts to stem the upsurge of violence against foreigners and said Washington would help as much as it could.
"We are still working with (Saudi) authorities to try to find him (missing American). We assume he is kidnapped, but we don't have any more information," US embassy spokesman Robert Keith told AFP.
Statements posted on Islamist websites in the name of the terror network of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, which wants to "cleanse" the country of "infidels," took responsibility for Saturday's murder of a US national and the first reported case of kidnapping in the Saudi capital.
"Our fighters of the Fallujah Brigade in the Arabian peninsula have kidnapped an American, a Christian, Paul M. Johnson Jr. born in 1955 and working as an aeronautics engineer," said the statement signed "al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula."
Several photographs of the American, a copy of his work permit, driving licence and health card, according to which he was working for top US defence contractor Lockheed Martin and came from Maryland, were included.
But telephone numbers listed with the claim showed Johnson worked, possibly on a contract basis, with Advanced Electronics Company (AEC), the same Saudi firm in which the American killed here on Saturday was employed.
This was confirmed by sources in Riyadh, who named the US national killed in a drive-by shooting as Kenneth Scroggs. He was in his mid-fifties.
AEC issued a statement saying one of its American employees had been shot dead, but did not name him or mention the missing American.
It said the slain employee worked as business development manager and had been with the firm for more than 12 years.
Riyadh's police chief said authorities were notified on Saturday evening of "the disappearance of a US national after he left his office at a Riyadh company".
His car was found abandoned in east Riyadh, and security authorities were investigating the incident, he said.
On Tuesday, another American who worked for Vinnell Corp, which helps train the Saudi National Guard, was shot dead at his home in Riyadh.
Another Islamist website posted video footage, attributed to an al-Qaeda cell, claiming responsibility for that killing.
The video described the victim as "American Jew Robert Jacobs, who worked for the spy group Vinnell".
It shows the body of a Western-dressed man hitting the ground as some 10 gunshots ring out and one of two assailants appears to be slitting the victim's throat.
"The Foreign Office is authorising the voluntary departure of non-essential staff and dependents," a spokesman told AFP in London.
"It's not a response to the events of yesterday. We have been looking at this for some time," he added.
"We are only bringing the mission into line with what the general travel advice is," which is to advise British nationals against all but essential travel to Saudi Arabia.
A spokesman for the British embassy in Riyadh said Britain believes that "terrorists are planning further attacks in Saudi Arabia against Westerners and places associated with Westerners."
Britons "who choose to travel to or to remain in Saudi Arabia should take all necessary steps to protect their safety and should make sure they have confidence in their individual security arrangements," Barrie Peach said.
An Irish cameraman was shot dead and a BBC journalist critically wounded in another attack in the Saudi capital on June 6, just a week after a shooting and hostage-taking rampage in the eastern oil city of Al-Khobar left 22 people dead, including four Westerners.
Six Westerners were killed when gunmen went on a shooting spree at a petrochemical plant in the Red Sea industrial port of Yanbu on May 1.
On May 22, a German national was shot dead in Riyadh, and on June 2, an American serviceman who also helps train the National Guard was slightly injured in another shooting outside the capital.
Expatriates and diplomats told AFP this week that Western residents of Saudi Arabia, deeply alarmed by the attacks, were increasingly not renewing work contracts and wanted the government to do more to reassure them.
Many expatriates no longer dare go out of their homes or compounds, and are restricting their movements to travelling to and from their workplaces.
The US embassy on Saturday night called again on American residents to leave.
The attacks have escalated despite a massive crackdown on suspected al-Qaeda sympathisers, which has netted hundreds of militants, since a wave of suicide bombings began in May 2003.
Around 90 people have been killed and hundreds injured in the 13-month-long campaign of violence.
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