(AP) Militants linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network have claimed responsibility for the killing of an Irish engineer earlier this month, according to a statement posted on the Internet. The statement said “one of the mujahedeen (holy fighters) brigades killed an Irish engineer at his workplace in Riyadh.” It gave no other information about the killers.

The claim appeared on an Internet periodical seen as the voice of al-Qaida’s operation in Saudi Arabia, called the Voice of Jihad (holy war). It could not immediately be verified.

Armed men ki lled Anthony Christopher Higgins, 63, on Aug. 3 after storming into his Riyadh office firing machine guns.

It was the second killing of an Irishman in the Saudi capital in two months. Simon Cumbers, 36, a British Broadcasting Corp. cameraman from Navan, Ireland, was shot and killed while filming in Riyadh on June 6.

Westerners have been the targets of shootings, suicide bombings and kidnappings in the kingdom in recent months in attacks that are seen as an attempt to undermine the economy, which depends heavily on expatriate labor.

Following attacks on residential compounds housing foreigners, Saudi authorities released a list of 26 most wanted terrorists and began hunting them and other militants down, killing and capturing many.

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