Fourth Frenchman dies after Saudi ambush

A French teenager wounded in an attack that killed three compatriots in Saudi Arabia lost his fight for life Tuesday amid shock over the first strike against Westerners in months.
The 17-year-old, whose father was also killed in the ambush, died after undergoing surgery to extract a bullet from a lung overnight. "He passed away now," the director of King Fahd Hospital of Medina, Mutawakkel Faleh Hajjaj, told AFP. The youngster's age had earlier been given as 22 but a French diplomatic source said he was just 17.
The four French expatriates were killed by masked gunmen near Medina Monday as they stopped en route back to their homes in the capital Riyadh after a trip to the historical site of Madain Saleh, a popular destination for Westerners.
French President Jacques Chirac expressed shock following the attack, the first in three months against Westerners in the oil-rich kingdom, which was rocked by a spate of bombings and shootings blamed on suspected al Qaeda militants starting in May 2003.
Chirac "firmly condemns this hateful act," said a statement from his office. The dead were among nine French expatriates who were ambushed in a desert area some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Medina. Two of them died on the spot, Hajjaj said. A third victim was driven to a nearby medical centre by his wife in defiance of a ban on women driving in conservative Saudi Arabia but was pronounced dead on arrival.
One of the survivors recounted how hooded gunmen had got out of a jeep and then opened fire on the men in the group as they stopped to picnic on their way back from Madain Saleh, said Dr Khaldoun Mounla, medical counsellor for the French consulate in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.
Three women, including the dead 17-year-old's mother, an 11-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy were not targeted, he said. A French source said the two were siblings. Saudi security men were posted at the hotel in Medina where the traumatised survivors and French diplomats spent the night.
A French diplomatic source said there was a possibility the survivors would be taken back to Riyadh Tuesday. He said Saudi authorities were ready to provide any assistance required by consular staff.
The group were all members of three families. Two of the victims worked for electric firm Schnider and the third was a teacher at a French school in Riyadh. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Paris and Riyadh were determined to track down the killers. Between 4,000 and 5,000 French nationals live in Saudi Arabia.