Investigators have uncovered startling evidence that members of Yemen’s security services were involved in orchestrating the suicide bombing of the USS Cole, The Post has learned.
U.S. counter-terrorism officials said last night that Yemeni investigators have questioned up to 60 members of Yemen’s police and military apparatus in the last two weeks, and at least five people have emerged from that group as possible accomplices of the suicide bombers.
Officials believe the bomb plotters were given false identification papers, four safe houses, government cars, advance information on the USS Cole’s movements and other help by Yemeni security officials in the weeks before the Oct. 12 attack on the warship.
Yemeni officials have described their suspects as “officials” from Lahej, a stronghold of the Egyptian Jihad located 22 miles north of Aden, and said they were veterans of the Afghan mujahedeen, the freedom fighters who battled the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Yemeni security involvement could help explain why FBI investigators have been unable to interview the 46 people who reportedly have been arrested as suspects or possible witnesses in the attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors and injured 39 others.
U.S. officials strongly suspect Yemeni security officers either looked the other way or actively helped to make sure the small boat loaded with 600 pounds of explosives was not stopped in Aden harbor as it sped towards the USS Cole during the attack.
Saudi terror leader Osama bin Laden is still thought to be the mastermind of the attack.
Bin Laden was a former recruiter of Islamic fighters in the Afghan war and built his global terror network from veterans of that conflict. The top leadership of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad merged with bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network two years ago.
“Personal ties in the Middle East are very important. And it now looks like you have people inside the Yemeni government who fought in Afghanistan who have personal ties to the alleged bombers,” said Kenneth Katzman a former CIA analyst now with the Congressional Research Service.
Bin Laden reportedly fled his main base camp in Afghanistan this week and has gone into hiding deep in the Hindu Kush mountains in anticipation of a possible U.S. air strike.
Witnesses told western news agencies that bin Laden and his senior commanders left the base camp Monday night after a series of meetings with top leaders of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia.
Although bin Laden changes his location frequently and has several bases of operation inside Afghanistan, his latest decision comes after reports that U.S. warplanes were seen flying over Kandahar last week.