Sudan ? An American diplomat was shot and killed early Tuesday by gunmen in a passing car who cut him off as he was being driven home in Sudan’s capital. Sudanese officials insisted it was not a terrorist attack but the U.S. embassy said it was too soon to determine the motive.

The diplomat’s Sudanese driver was also killed in the shooting.

The Sudanese government often drums up anti-Western sentiment in the media. But attacks on foreigners are rare in Khartoum, where an American diplomat was last killed in 1973.

John Granville, 33, was an official for the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID and Granville’s family in Buffalo, N.Y., said. He working to implement a 2005 peace agreement between Sudan’s north and south that ended more than two decades of civil war, USAID said.

Granville was being driven home at about 4 a.m. when another vehicle cut off his car and opened fire before fleeing the scene, the Sudanese Interior Ministry said.

Granville initially survived the attack with five gunshot wounds to the hand, shoulder and stomach. He died after surgery.