Saudis hunt BBC crew attackers
(CNN) -- Saudi forces are hunting gunmen who killed a British Broadcasting Corporation freelance cameraman and critically injured a journalist.
The corporation's security correspondent Frank Gardner remained unconscious on Tuesday and in a critical condition in hospital, the UK's Press Association reported.
Irish freelance cameraman Simon Cumbers, 36, was killed in the drive-by shooting in the capital Riyadh on Sunday.
Sunday's attack, the fourth in five weeks on Westerners in the kingdom, heightened security fears among the tens of thousands of expatriates in the world's largest oil exporter.
Meanwhile Monday, purported al Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia warned in a written statement that they planned attacks on U.S. and other Western airlines and other means of transportation. (Full story)
In London, BBC director of news Richard Sambrook said Gardner, described by the corporation as a "leading expert on al Qaeda," had surgery for abdominal wounds.
"Our thoughts are with the families of Simon and Frank tonight," said Sambrook. "We are in touch with them and offering them all the support that we can."
Gardner was in a "critical but stable condition," British Embassy spokesman Barrie Peach told The Associated Press.
"He has been transferred to the intensive care unit at the Specialist Hospital."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed concern for the families of the two journalists, and said the shootings demonstrated the threat terrorists posed around the world.
"We have to be vigilant and get out and get after them and make sure we deal with this issue," Blair said.
Chris Cramer, president of the International News Safety Institute and managing director of CNN International, said the "deliberate attack on yet more colleagues proves that our profession is in terrible danger from those who prefer to see us dead or injured.
"The profession needs to proceed with the utmost caution and the maximum sharing of information in hostile areas. Our thoughts and prayers are with the BBC and the families of those who were targeted."
The journalists, who traveled to Saudi Arabia last week, were walking in a neighborhood on the south side of Riyadh on Sunday when men in a passing car opened fire on them, a senior official at the Saudi Interior Ministry told CNN.
The assailants escaped, a Western diplomat said.
The official Saudi Press Agency, quoting Riyadh's police chief, blamed the attack on "unknown gunmen" and said an investigation was under way.
British Ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles said the BBC team, who were with a Saudi information ministry guide, appeared to be victims of an opportunist rather than organized attack.
"Westerners operating in this area of Riyadh with a camera would obviously be vulnerable," he told the BBC, adding there was a "serious and chronic terrorist threat" in Saudi Arabia.
But the Interior Ministry official blamed Islamic militants who have carried out a series of attacks on Western citizens.
Sunday's shooting came a week after 22 people died in the Saudi oil city of Khobar in a hostage standoff that ended with Saudi troops storming the residential compound where militants had taken more than 200 people hostage.
Three of the hostage-takers were allowed to escape after they threatened to kill more of their captives.
CNNArabic.com Editor Caroline Faraj contributed to this report.
