Riyadh, November 11: A Saher car was set on fire in the Alquwayiyah area on the Makkah highway east of Riyadh, killing the driver.
Riyadh police is intensifying its search for the attacker. The reason of the attack is still unknown.
On Thursday deputy spokesman for Riyadh Police Maj. Fawaz Al-Maiman said: “The police with the cooperation of Saudi security agencies are investigating the shooting incident. Police investigators were dispatched to the area where the incident occurred for additional evidence.”
A Saher employee was also recently attacked in Abha when a gun-toting man shot at his car, a local newspaper reported Monday.
The worker, identified as Sultan, said he noticed a vehicle following him. When he stopped at a restaurant, two people got out of the car, approached him and threatened to kill him. He said that he tried to talk to them but they did not listen and one of them shot at him, missing.
“I did not know who they were and why they were attacking me. When I got out of my car and confronted them, one of them returned to his car, took his gun and aimed it at me,” said Sultan.
“He fired his gun, but he missed. A number of people managed to seize the gun from the shooter, but the two escaped before police arrived. I did succeed in writing down the number plate. I was slightly injured from the attack,” said Sultan. Police are still searching for the attackers.
This attack is similar to other incidents where Saher employees and their cars have been attacked.
In a recent incident in Buraidah, two Saudis in a pick-up truck pulled up next to a Saher vehicle and threw a metal bar at it, smashing the window. The driver suffered minor injuries.
Last year a youth threw an iron bar at a Saher car also in Buraidah while driving at high speed. The rod broke the windshield, and damaged cameras and other equipment.
There is a video clip circulating on the Internet and mobile phones that showed a Saher car pulling over on a main road. A number of Saudi teenagers then started attacking the vehicle and throwing rocks at it.
The driver was left with no option but to escape from the spot before the attacks escalated.
In Makkah, a Saher vehicle was attacked when five men, three of them dressed in military uniform, assaulted two operators inside.
In March an unknown thief stole a Saher camera from a vehicle stationed at Jeddah’s Prince Miteb (Arbaeen) Street. The theft occurred when the vehicle’s driver and operators went to the mosque for Asr prayer. The equipment inside the car was valued at an estimated SR500,000.
In Madinah, a young Saudi, bitter after having been fined numerous times by Saher, stood by the city’s Prince Naif Street waving a stick at passing motorists to warn them that a camera vehicle was parked ahead.
“Certainly there is a need to review the Saher speed monitoring program. What happened to victims is unacceptable especially when the main purpose of Saher is to save lives not lose lives and not in this violent manner. This is not us and not how we are brought up,” said 23-year-old Jeddah resident Abdullah Mansour.
“This is not just an attack on a Saher employee who was doing his job, this is an attack on our safety and on the Interior Ministry itself. Whoever the attacker is needs to be apprehended and prosecuted by the law for committing this heinous crime,” said father of four Galal Saleh.
-Arab News