Riyadh, June 6 (Reuters): Suspected Islamist militants shot and killed a Briton and wounded another in the Saudi capital Riyadh today in the fourth deadly attack against Westerners in the oil-rich kingdom in five weeks.

“Two people of British nationality came under fire from unknown men in a poor district of Riyadh...resulting in the death of one of them and wounding of the other,” a Saudi interior ministry statement said. The statement gave no further information.

A Western diplomat said two Britons were attacked in Riyadh.

“An incident involving British citizens occurred. One was killed and another was injured, presumably in a shooting,” the diplomat said.

Another Western diplomat said the dead Briton was believed to be a journalist who was filming in the area.

The attack came a week after al Qaida militants killed 22 people, 19 of them foreigners, in a shooting and hostage-taking spree in the eastern oil city of Khobar. The attack helped push world oil prices to record highs before producers pledged to hike output.

Diplomats said today’s shooting occurred in the Suweidi district, west of Riyadh. The area is a stronghold of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida followers and 15 of the 26 most wanted militants in the kingdom, including the leader of the group in Saudi Arabia Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, are from there.

Security sources said the gunmen fled after the shooting. Saudi security forces set up roadblocks and patrols across the capital after the attack.

Security forces have carried out extensive arrests in Suweidi of suspected militants in a crackdown in recent months.

Authorities are still hunting for three men who carried out the Khobar attack and managed to escape.

The world’s largest oil exporter, has been battling militants of bin Laden’s al Qaida network for over a year.

Foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said today that militants were going after soft, random targets. He called on foreign governments to hand over Saudi dissidents abroad with alleged links to the violence that has rocked the kingdom.