Bosnia: Terrorist attack outside of US Embassy

A man opened fire with an automatic weapon on Saturday in what authorities called a terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Bosnia.

A policeman and the gunman were wounded, but the embassy said none of its employees was hurt.

Sarajevo Mayor Alija Behmen said the gunman "got off a tram with a Kalashnikov and started shooting at the American Embassy." Witnesses told Bosnian television that the man urged pedestrians to move away, saying he was targeting only the embassy.

He wore a beard and was dressed in an outfit with short pants that reveal his ankles typical for followers of the conservative Wahhabi branch of Islam.

One police officer guarding the building was wounded before police surrounded the gunman. After a 30-minute standoff, the sound of a single shot echoed and AP video showed the shooter slump to the ground.

Police arrested the wounded man who one of Bosnia's three presidents said is a foreigner and took him away in an ambulance as pedestrians cowered behind buildings and vehicles.

Hospital spokeswoman Biljana Jandric told The Associated Press the gunman had a minor wound to his leg, and would spend the night at the hospital before being released into police custody.

Bosnian TV identified the shooter as Mevlid Jasarevic, from Novi Pazar, Serbia. It said he is a Wahhabi follower. Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic confirmed his identity.

The Wahhabis are an extremely conservative branch which is rooted in Saudi Arabia and linked to religious militants in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Nayef named Saudi crown prince

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has appointed Interior Minister Prince Nayef as the new crown prince, the Royal Court said in a statement issued on Friday, signalling an orderly process of future succession in the world's largest oil exporter.

"We chose His Royal Highness Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz as crown prince," said the statement, read on state television and carried on the kingdom's news agency SPA soon after midnight.

It said Nayef, who is in his 70s, was appointed after King Abdullah took his choice to a royal family body called the Allegiance Council, set up in 2006 to make the process of succession in the conservative Islamic nation smoother and more orderly.

It was the first time the council had been involved in the appointment of a new crown prince, a move that analysts had said would help to regulate an opaque system of succession.

Crown Prince Sultan died of colon cancer in New York almost a week ago. He was also the kingdom's defence and aviation minister for nearly five decades. No replacements for these positions have yet been appointed.

At stake is the stability of a key US ally, whose ruling al-Saud family wields great influence over Sunni Muslims through its guardianship of Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina.

Just over a century ago, King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud recaptured the family's historical stronghold of Riyadh from a rival clan, setting his family on a path of conquest from the Red Sea to the Gulf that eventually made the sleepy oasis town the capital of the world's foremost oil power.

As interior minister since 1975, a post to which he was reappointed in the Royal Court statement, Nayef has developed a reputation as a conservative with close ties to the Saudi religious establishment.

Nayef is sometimes portrayed as putting the brakes on the King Abdullah's cautious reforms which aim to reconcile the kingdom's conservative Islamic traditions with a youthful, increasingly outward looking population in the Middle East's largest economy.

Some 60 percent of Saudis are under the age of 30 and Internet penetration is 44 percent, according to internetworldstats.com.

US embassy in Saudi warns of 'terror kidnap plot'

The US embassy in Saudi Arabia is warning American citizens that a terrorist group may be planning to kidnap Westerners in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

The embassy on Wednesday urged Americans in the kingdom to “exercise prudence and enhanced security awareness at all times”. No further details of the possible plot were given.

Saudi Arabia has waged a heavy crackdown on Islamist militants since al Qaeda’s Saudi branch launched a wave of attacks in the country in 2003, including suicide bombings and shootings that killed dozens of Saudis and foreigners. At least 11 Americans were among the dead.

The kingdom’s security forces appeared to have largely crushed the militants by 2006, arresting or killing most of its known leaders.