USS Cole Bombers: Where are they now?

Yahoo: WASHINGTON - Waleed Mohammed bin Attash, long suspected of plotting the bombing of the USS Cole, confessed to planning the attack during a hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a Pentagon transcript released Monday.

An alleged chief operational planner for al-Qaida, bin Attash also said he helped organize the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed more than 200, the transcript said. Seventeen sailors were killed and dozens injured when suicide bombers steered an explosives-laden boat into the guided missile destroyer Cole on Oct. 12, 2000.

"I participated in the buying or purchasing of the explosives," bin Attash said when asked what his role was in the attacks on the Cole and the embassies. "I put together the plan for the operation a year and a half prior to the operation, buying the boat and recruiting the members that did the operation."

Cooperative Research provides an excellent timeline of the intelligence failures that lead to the Cole Bombing and notes:

In May 2001, UPI will report, “According to several US government sources, one of the reasons the attack on the Cole succeeded was involvement by the ‘highest levels’ of the Yemen government of President Ali Abdallah Saleh, although Saleh himself personally was not, one said.” [United Press International, 5/20/2001]

However, Ahmed al-Hasani, Commander of the Yemeni Navy at the time of the bombing, stated in a media interview that President Saleh had prior knowledge of the terrorist plot. Al-Hasani is currently in exile in the UK.

Since the bombing of the USS Cole, many thought to be involved in the conspiracy have recieved light sentences or escaped jail in Yemen:

Six convicted Cole conspirators’ appeal verdict was rendered in March of 2005. In 2005, a court appeal reduced al-Badawis’ sentence from death to 15 years, Mamoon Amswah was commuted from eight to five years. The court upheld the death for Abdu al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is being held in US custody and who is believed to be the mastermind of the USS Cole attack. Fahd Al-Quso’s ten year prison sentence was upheld. Ali Mohamed Murakab and Morad al-Sorori both retained five years in prison for forging identification documents.

Jamal al-Badawi was originally sentenced to death by a Yemeni court for his involvement in the attack. The sentence was commuted upon appeal to fifteen years in prison. However, al-Badawi managed to escape from jail twice and is currently at large. In May 2003 after their escape from prison the month prior, Jamal Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al-Badawi and Fahd al-Quso ak/ak Fahd al-Qis’e were indicted by a federal grand jury in Manhattan, New York for plotting the attack on the Cole and in total were indicted for an excess of fifty terror related offenses. Both al-Quso and al-Badawi were recaptured in March 2004.

Jamal Al-Badawi escaped from prison again in 2006 along with 22 other al-Qaeda operatives. Al-Badawi currently remains at large. Shortly after the escape, Yemen’s Specialized Penal Court ordered the release of Hadi Saleh Al-Waeli suspected of selling arms, ammunition and explosives to the terrorists who bombed the USS Cole Destroyer at Aden Port in 2000. Khaldoun Al-Hukaimi and Saleh Mana held in connection with the attack managed to escape from the custody of the Political Security Organization in Aden in 2003 along with eight other detainees. The pair was reported to have committed suicide attacks in Iraq in 2005, RayNews reported.

In 2003, Yemen arrested Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal who was on the US list of most wanted terrorists in Yemen and was believed to be one of the masterminds of the Cole bombing. Yemen refused to allow US federal investigators access to Al-Ahdal, the Yemen Times reported, suggesting instead that the FBI submit questions for al-Ahdal in writing. Sources indicated to the Yemen Times that al-Ahdal had confessed to involvement in the bombing. He admitted “being in charge of technical and financial preparations” for both the Cole and Limburg attacks, the paper reported. Al-Ahdal was tried in 2006 on charges of distributing money for al-Qaeda. No charges were brought relating to the Cole bombing. He was sentenced to 37 months in prison, and with time served, was expected to be released shortly. Also tried in 2006 was Ghalib Al-Zaidi who was charged with harboring al-Ahdal for a month following the Cole bombing; al-Zaidi was sentenced to three years time served and released.

SJTL

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