THE BBC correspondent Frank Gardner was in a coma last night after al-Qaeda militants had shot him nine times and killed his cameraman Simon Cumbers.

Saudi police are investigating suggestions that the gunmen may have been tipped off about the presence of the BBC team in a stronghold of alQaeda supporters in the capital, Riyadh.

Witnesses said that the pair were led away from their official escorts by local people they were interviewing just as the gunmen drove past in a fast-moving Jeep and opened fire.

A freelance cameraman, Simon Cumbers, from Navan, Co Meath, died instantly after being hit in the head.

Mr Gardner was hit in the abdomen, arm, shoulder and leg. As he collapsed he reportedly shouted out in Arabic to bystanders: “I’m a Muslim, help me.”

Nobody went to his aid and the men he had been questioning were seen running away.

Close friends said last night that Mr Gardner, a father of two and a fluent Arabic speaker with a degree in Arab and Islamic studies, had not converted to Islam but was carrying a small copy of the Koran as a device to try to reassure militants that he might encounter. Terrorists, who killed 22 people in the eastern city of al-Khobar ten days ago, had questioned their victims about their religion, allowing Muslims to flee but summarily executing Westerners.

The two BBC men arrived in Saudi Arabia last week to cover the aftermath of the al-Khobar killings.

They were ambushed on Sunday evening while filming outside the home of a notorious terrorist in the Suweidi district — a place where 15 of the 26 people on the Saudi’s “most wanted list” live.

The family home of the al-Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, is just a few streets away.

One Saudi official told The Times last night: “He (Mr Gardner) did not take any security with him and he and Mr Cumbers were seen talking to people in that street in a very dangerous area for quite some time.

“What we want to know is whether anybody locally made a mobile telephone call to the gunmen to tip them off.”

The team’s driver and official escort were being questioned last night. Officials also want to know why a local camera crew were on hand to film the injured Mr Gardner before medical help arrived.

Mr Gardner, the BBC’s Security Correspondent, who had served in the regular and Territorial Army, underwent further surgery last night after having two bullets removed from his abdomen, one from his leg and another from his hand.

A senior BBC executive said: “It was a touch and go for a while but doctors are confident he will pull through”.

A BBC team are due in Saudi Arabia to join British diplomats in an inquiry into whether the two men were ambushed in a carefully planned attack or victims of a random shooting.

Mr Garner and Mr Cumbers had been travelling in a conspicuous red Lexus four-wheel drive with a Saudi driver and an escort from the Information Ministry.

It was understood that they spent longer in Suweidi than they had intended as they had difficulty locating the house of Ibrahim al-Rayyes, who was killed in a gunfight with Saudi security forces last December.

The family of Mr Cumbers, were being comforted last night by relatives in Ireland. He had set up a production company with his wife Louise Bevan, and was described by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, as “a great guy”. “It makes his death all the more tragic and poignant,” he said.

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