Saudi Preacher Shot Dead in Guinea Village

A Saudi Arabian preacher was shot dead in Guinea's east after organizing a prayer service that angered some villagers in the majority-Muslim West African country, local sources said Wednesday.

The man, who was a member of a mission building mosques in Upper Guinea, was killed on Tuesday night in the village of Kantebalandougou, between the towns Kankan and Kerouane.

He was "shot twice in the chest while riding a motorcycle with a villager on the way to get his car," a security source told AFP.

According to a preliminary investigation, the preacher, along with two of his compatriots, had organized "a prayer that was not to the taste of the local population, particularly traditional hunters who then ambushed him," the security source said.

"The Saudi died at the scene while his companion, who owned the motorcycle, was seriously injured and taken to a hospital in Kankan," said a medical source.

Saudi Arabia has long faced accusations of exporting Wahhabism, its ultra-conservative form of Islam, which has been gaining popularity across West Africa.

The austere doctrine has been increasingly adopted since the 1990s in Guinea, which is 85 percent Muslim, as its young people attend Arab schools.