A senior U.S. diplomat was gunned down with three bullets to the chest outside his Amman home on Monday in the first assassination of a Western diplomat in Jordan, officials said. An unidentified assailant shot the official, named by diplomats as Lawrence Foley, a senior administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, at 7:30 am (00:30 a.m. EST) as Foley was leaving for work, security officials said.

A Jordanian security source said Foley, aged 62, was shot at close range with three bullets in the chest before the assailant and possible accomplices fled the scene of the shooting in an affluent area of the capital Amman.

"One assailant or more was behind the criminal shooting and investigations are ongoing to reveal the culprits," the security official told Reuters.

No one has claimed responsibility for the murder.

Witnesses said Foley was shot in the garage of his two-story villa in an upmarket neighborhood close to the bustling commercial Mecca Street in the capital.

"There was blood near the Mercedes car that was parked in his indoor garage," said a witness close to the site of the shooting, where anti-terrorist experts and senior officials in the presence of U.S. security personnel were gathering information. The area was put under a security cordon.

Foley's wife immediately notified security officials who rushed to the scene.

FIRST EVER KILLING OF WESTERN DIPLOMAT

Jordan's Information Minister Mohammad Adwan condemned the assassination, the first ever killing of a Western diplomat in the country according to security officials.

"This attack, regardless of its motives, is an attack on the country and its national security," Petra state news agency quoted the minister as saying.

Security was tightened further at the fortress-like U.S. embassy in the Abdoun district of the capital, the largest American embassy complex in the region, according to diplomats.

Diplomats said other Western embassies were put on a high alert as Monday's killing sent shock waves among Western expatriates in a country where political assassinations are rare and security is normally tight.

Since a landmark peace treaty with Israel in 1994, there have been various attempts in Jordan to kill Israeli diplomats, but with no reported deaths.

An Israeli businessman was killed last year, and a number of Israeli schoolgirls were killed in a 1997 shooting spree by a Jordanian soldier in a northern border strip.

Official records show no Western diplomat in Jordan has ever been harmed in the country, even at the height of anti-Western feelings when the kingdom opposed the U.S.-led coalition that drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in 1991.

Jordan, a major U.S. ally in the Middle East, has been rewarded this year by extra military assistance as a reward for its backing for President Bush's "war on terrorism."

In Washington, a State Department emergency operations dispatcher said a duty officer had been briefed on the death of a diplomat in Jordan but would not take calls for several hours.

USAID is the chief U.S. agency for providing disaster relief abroad, helping impoverished countries and promoting democratic reforms.

PHOTO CAPTION

Police and journalists stand near blood stains next to the Mercedes car of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley who was shot dead by an unknown assailant in front of his Amman home while heading for work. (Majed Jaber/Reuters)