For those who don’t know the whole saga, the Post has a thorough overview of the U.S.S. Cole bombing and its aftermath. Nothing really new, except some quotes from Yemeni officials. The documents accompanying the article are in interesting read too. Regarding Yemen’s refusal to cooperate with the initial investigation – I know that since that time Yemenis have undergone FBI training, including in forensics…no more excuses.

Two suspects, described as the key organizers, were captured outside Yemen and are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Many details of their alleged involvement remain classified. It is unclear when — or if — they will be tried by the military.

The collapse of the Cole investigation offers a revealing case study of the U.S. government’s failure to bring al-Qaeda operatives and their leaders to justice for some of the most devastating attacks on American targets over the past decade.

A week after the Cole bombing, President Bill Clinton vowed to hunt down the plotters and promised, “Justice will prevail.” In March 2002, President Bush said his administration was cooperating with Yemen to prevent it from becoming “a haven for terrorists.” He added: “Every terrorist must be made to live as an international fugitive with no place to settle or organize, no place to hide, no governments to hide behind and not even a safe place to sleep.”

Since then, Yemen has refused to extradite Badawi and an accomplice to the United States, where they have been indicted on murder charges. Other Cole conspirators have been freed after short prison terms. At least two went on to commit suicide attacks in Iraq.

“After we worked day and night to bring justice to the victims and prove that these Qaeda operatives were responsible, we’re back to square one,” said Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and a lead investigator into the bombing. “Do they have laws over there or not? It’s really frustrating what’s happening.”

To this day, al-Qaeda trumpets the attack on the Cole as one of its greatest military victories. It remains an improbable story: how two suicide bombers smiled and waved to unsuspecting U.S. sailors in Aden’s harbor as they pulled their tiny fishing boat alongside the $1 billion destroyer and blew a gaping hole in its side.

Despite the initial promises of accountability, only limited public inquiries took place in Washington, unlike the extensive investigations that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Basic questions remain about which individuals and countries played a role in the assault on the Cole.

Some officials acknowledged that pursuing the Cole investigation became less of a political priority with the passage of time. A new administration took power three months after the bombing. Then came Sept. 11.

“During the first part of the Bush administration, no one was willing to take ownership of this,” said Roger W. Cressey, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations who helped oversee the White House‘s response to the Cole attack. “It didn’t happen on their watch. It was the forgotten attack.”

A Clash of Cultures and Wills

The day after the attack, a planeload of armed FBI agents arrived in Aden. But they quickly ran into resistance from Yemeni officials, who didn’t like the idea of foreigners operating on their soil and telling them what to do.

The Cole bombing represented an enormous political embarrassment for Yemen, which had lobbied the U.S. Navy to use the port of Aden as a refueling stop. As the poorest country in the Arab world, Yemen was also unprepared for some of the FBI’s demands.

“This is a country that didn’t even have fingerprint powder, and now they’re dealing with the most sophisticated law enforcement agency in the world,” said Barbara K. Bodine, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen at the time. “DNA is a complete fantasy to them.”

Bodine said the FBI was slow to trust Yemeni authorities, and kept the U.S. Embassy in the dark as well, hampering the probe. She described the Yemeni government as generally cooperative, but said some officials dug in their heels and “certainly didn’t like us.”

The FBI was “dealing with a bureaucracy and a culture they didn’t understand,” she said. “Yemen operates on a different timeline than we do. We had one group working on a New York minute, and another on a 4,000-year-old history.”

The FBI and some White House officials, in turn, suspected Bodine was too sympathetic toward the Yemenis. The FBI special agent in charge, John O’Neill, was forced to return to New York after butting heads too many times with the ambassador.

Michael A. Sheehan, then the State Department‘s counterterrorism coordinator, said both sides were to blame.

“Basically, I was in the middle of this thing,” he recalled. “I felt both sides were over the top — the FBI in demanding complete autonomy in a foreign country and State in being too protective of the host country. And eventually it just turned into a clash of wills.”

“Sometimes, when you deal with a host country, you can push too hard and it backfires and you get less cooperation,” Sheehan added. “We needed to find a middle ground, and we had difficulty getting there.”

Two in U.S. Custody

Amid the friction, U.S. and Yemeni investigators soon identified the ringleader of the attack as Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi national of Yemeni descent who served as al-Qaeda’s operations chief in the Arabian Peninsula.

At the time, Yemeni authorities insisted that Nashiri had fled the country before the Cole bombing. But a senior Yemeni official said that was not the case and that Yemeni investigators had located Nashiri in Taizz, a city about 90 miles northwest of Aden, soon after the attack. The official said Nashiri spent several months in Taizz, where he received high-level protection from the government. “We knew where he was, but we could not arrest him,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation.

Nashiri eventually left Yemen to prepare other attacks on U.S. targets in the Persian Gulf, U.S. officials said. He was captured in the United Arab Emirates in November 2002 and handed over to the CIA. He was detained in the CIA‘s secret network of overseas prisons until he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006.

In a hearing at Guantanamo last year, Nashiri said he confessed to masterminding the Cole attack only because he had been tortured.

“From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me,” he said, according to a transcript. “I just said those things to make the people happy.”

Another al-Qaeda leader, Tawfiq bin Attash, who also played an organizing role in the Sept. 11 hijackings, was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, in May 2003 and confessed last year to overseeing the Cole plot. In a separate appearance before a Guantanamo tribunal, he said he had helped buy the explosives and the motorboat. He also said he had recruited operatives for the plot but was in Afghanistan at the time of the attack.

Bin Attash and Nashiri were both named unindicted co-conspirators in the Justice Department‘s investigation into the Cole attack. A decision was made not to indict them because pending criminal charges could have forced the CIA or the Pentagon to give up custody of the men, U.S. officials said in interviews.

A Special Deal

After a long trial, a Yemeni court condemned Badawi, the organizer, to death in 2004, although his sentence was reduced on appeal to 15 years in prison. Four other conspirators were given prison sentences ranging from five to 10 years.

The convicts were sent to a maximum security prison in Sanaa, the capital. They didn’t stay there long.

On Feb. 3, 2006, prison officials announced that 23 al-Qaeda members, including most of the Cole defendants, had vanished. They escaped by digging a tunnel that snaked 300 feet to a nearby mosque.

It was Badawi’s second successful jailbreak. Three years earlier, he had wormed out of another maximum security prison in Aden; Yemeni officials said he had picked a hole through the bathroom wall.

Badawi surrendered about 20 months after his second escape. But Yemeni authorities cut him a deal. They said they would let him remain free if he would help them search for the other al-Qaeda fugitives.

The arrangement was kept secret until Yemeni newspapers reported shortly afterward that Badawi had been spotted at his home in Aden.

U.S. officials said they were stunned. After his first escape, Badawi had been indicted in U.S. District Court in New York for the Cole killings, and the United States had posted a $5 million bounty for his capture. But U.S. officials couldn’t get their hands on him. “This was someone who was implicated in the Cole bombing,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at the time. “He needs to be in jail.”

U.S. officials withheld $20 million in aid to Yemen and canceled a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Yemeni officials said they quickly put Badawi back behind bars. But reports persist that his incarceration remains a day-to-day affair.

In December, a Yemeni newspaper reported that Badawi had again been seen roaming free in public. One source close to the Cole investigation said there is evidence that Badawi is allowed to come and go, despite the periodic requests by U.S. officials to inspect his prison cell.

Diplomatic relations soured further in February, when the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa learned that Fahd al-Quso, another Cole conspirator, had been secretly freed nine months before. Like Badawi, Quso faces U.S. charges in the Cole case and has a $5 million bounty on his head.

‘Something . . . Doesn’t Smell Right’

U.S. officials have renewed their demands that Badawi and Quso be extradited so they can stand trial in New York. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III flew to Sanaa last month to deliver the message personally to Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Yemen has refused, citing a constitutional ban on extraditing its citizens.

“Unfortunately, we now have a stalemate,” said Foreign Minister Abubaker al-Qirbi.

Qirbi said the dispute was a politically sensitive one, with many Yemenis opposed to helping the Bush administration. He defended the tactic of allowing the Cole plotters to go free in exchange for help in tracking down other terrorist suspects. “This is a normal practice,” he said. “Everybody makes deals with anybody who cooperates, not just in Yemen, but in the United States.”

Yemen’s interior minister, Rashad al-Alimi, said the deal-cutting was necessary because al-Qaeda has rebuilt its networks in Yemen and is targeting the government.

“Our battle with al-Qaeda is a long one,” he said. “It isn’t our battle only. Our tragedy — and what makes things worse — is that al-Qaeda is united. And our coalition is divided, even though we have a common enemy.”

Some Yemenis have questioned whether their government has other motives. One senior Yemeni official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Badawi and other al-Qaeda members have a long relationship with Yemen’s intelligence agencies and were recruited in the past to target political opponents.

Khaled al-Anesi, an attorney for some of the Cole defendants, said Yemen had rushed to convict them. But he said he is still mystified by the government’s subsequent handling of the case.

“There’s something that doesn’t smell right,” he said. “It was all very strange. After these people were convicted in unfair trials, all of a sudden it was announced that they had escaped. And then the government announced they had surrendered, but we still don’t know how they escaped or if they had help.”

Hamoud al-Hitar, a former Supreme Court justice, said the trials were fair. But he suggested that the government had turned lenient because the Cole defendants had participated in a “dialogue and reconciliation program” designed to de-radicalize al-Qaeda members.

Hitar, who oversees the program, claimed that 98 percent of graduates have remained nonviolent. Asked about two Cole suspects who escaped and went to Iraq to become suicide bombers, Hitar shrugged. “Iraq was not part of the dialogue program,” he said.

A Lawsuit and a Rebuff

Relatives of the 17 sailors who died on the Cole said they are furious at Yemen for releasing the plotters. But they expressed equal disdain for their own government.

The families have fought for years to obtain information from the State, Defense and Justice departments about their inquiries into the attack. “We never really got anyplace,” said Andrew C. Hall, an attorney for the relatives.

With few other options, family members filed a civil lawsuit in 2004 against the government of Sudan, alleging that it had provided support for al-Qaeda over the years and therefore was also liable for the Cole attack. Last July, a federal judge in Norfolk, Va., ruled in their favor and ordered Sudan to pay $7.96 million in damages. (Yemen could not be sued because, unlike Sudan, it is not listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department.)

John P. Clodtfelter Jr. of Mechanicsville, Va., whose son Kenneth died on the Cole, said the families have tried to meet with Bush to press for more action.

“I was just flat told that he wouldn’t meet with us,” Clodtfelter said. “Before him, President Clinton promised we’d go out and get these people, and of course we never did. I’m sorry, but it’s just like the lives of American servicemen aren’t that important.”

Staff researcher Robert E. Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.

This is why Sadiq al Ahmar’s control of Islah is such a tragedy. I feel sorry for the Brothers and true “reformists” within the party who must deal with him. I don’t disagree with anything he is saying, just the sentiment behind it.

Do they even have patents in Yemen? Maybe that’s why he’s having trouble. No joke, it would be great if it was true…but I don’t have much “faith” in the al Iman head. I think the all the henna might be affecting to his brain. Now hepatitis B and C, and diabetes! Wow, I can’t wait.

Yemeni university announces AIDS remedy

SANA’A, April 12 (Saba) – Chairman of the Iman University Abdul Majeed al-Zindani has announced his university readiness to treat HIV-affected people.

The announcement was made at a press conference on the sidelines of the first international health conference that coincided with the sixth medical forum held recently in Yemen.

Al-Zindani said that after twenty years of search he and a medical team could produce a medication that will help cure the HIV- affected people.

He added the medication was produced under the supervision of the University of Abdul Aziz Bin Saud.

Experiments conducted on animals indicated the medicine was safe and no side effects could associate its use.

Al-Zindani said he is facing difficulties preventing him from getting patent, pointing out that the Public Health and Population ministry promised to give him a patent after he gave it samples of the drug to be tested.

On the other hand, he indicated that he had conducted other searches by which he could produce medicines for treating the diseases of the hepatitis B and hepatitis C, and diabetes.

But he added that it is difficult to provide large quantities of these medicines for people.

This doesn’t sound like any organized al Qaeda-Yemen operation…shooting at an army vehicle and running away. Of course, a number of checkpoints have been attacked as well lately, which AQ apparently later claimed credit for. The “bomb” is more likely a grenade. There are plenty in Mareb sympathetic to al Qaeda and hostile to the central and provincial authority, so it’s not surprising that a threat/eulogy would be sent out. Additionally, the tribes have learned by now that any mention of al Qaeda is a good way to get attention. I could be wrong, but I’m not convinced.

UPDATE: almotamar.net confirms the “explosion.”

Al Qaeda threatens leadership in Mareb: One soldier killed in Mareb

السبت 12 إبريل-نيسان 2008 / Mareb Press

One soldier was killed on Saturday by unknown men on Safer road in Mareb province.

The attackers opened fire on an army vehicle leading to the death of one solider. The attackers were able to run away.

The security apparatus are still search and investigating to know the attackers.

On other hand, unknown men threw a bomb on the building of the Command of Middle Region causing no casualties.

It’s worth mentioning that the building of the Command of Middle Region was exposed to a number of attacks during the last months. The attacks allegedly carried out by Al Qaeda. The attack occurred during day time not at night as usual.

Unknown men have distributed publications threatening the leadership and social figures in Mareb with death for being involved, as they claimed, in killing four Al Qaeda men.

The publications which include poems also praise and lament the four Al Qaeda men.

Second blast within a week, Americans evacuated from embassy

By: Nasser Arrabyee

Article Date: Apr 10, 2008

A bomb exploded early on Thursday outside the offices of a Canadian oil firm in Hadda Street, in the Yemeni capital Sana’a. The blast caused minor damage to the wall of the building of the largest oil company operating in Yemen, Canadian Nexen Petroleum. It caused no causalities according to eyewitnesses.

A police officer at the scene said that the improvised device was tossed into the corner of a cinema adjacent to the company’s building. He said a second bomb was found by the door of a nearby restaurant and defused. The incident comes just days after another attack, attributed to al-Qaeda, on a residential complex housing western workers in Sana’a last Sunday. This prompted the US Embassy in Sana’a to release a statement on Tuesday that non-essential staff will be evacuated from Sana’a immediately.

“Following the attack on the US Embassy on March 18 and the April 6 attack on the Hadda residential compound in Sana’a, the Department of State has ordered the departure of non-emergency embassy staff and family members from Yemen,” said a statement issued by the embassy and sent to media.

“Embassy employees are not authorized to travel outside of Sana’a and have been advised to avoid hotels, restaurants, and tourist areas and to strictly limit their exposure in public places until further notice,” the statement reads. The embassy statement also urged Americans in the country to “exercise caution and take prudent security measures, including maintaining a high level of vigilance, avoiding crowds and demonstrations, keeping a low profile, varying times and routes for all travel.” Last Sunday April 6, unknown men believed to be al-Qaeda affiliates fired three mortar rounds at a residential compound also on Hadda Street in Sana’a.

Seven people believed to be connected with the foreign complex attack were arrested, reported Saba news agency.

On March 18, mortars allegedly fired by al-Qaeda narrowly missed the US Embassy in Sana’a, killing a soldier and injuring about 20 girls at a neighboring school.

After these two attacks, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller visited Yemen on Wednesday April 9 and met with officials including President Ali Abdullah Saleh with whom he discussed “Yemen’s efforts to combat terrorism.”

Interesting. The “possibility”…if they hand over all the Cole bombers?

U.S. Navy Yet To Return to Aden

By christopher p. cavas

Once terrorists have chased out United States forces, do those forces go back?

Not in the case of Yemen and the USS Cole.

The Navy confirmed April 10 that no port visits have been conducted in the port of Aden since the Oct. 12, 2000, terrorist attack on the destroyer Cole. Seventeen American sailors were killed and 39 wounded in the attack, which took place during what was intended as a brief refueling stopover.

Aden is in a key location for U.S. and coalition forces, who routinely operate out of nearby Djibouti and patrol the Horn of Africa region.

The issue was broached April 8 during a Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee hearing when Chairman Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., mentioned he’d recently been told “naval ships don’t go back into Aden” since the attack.

“A person was talking to me,” Kennedy said. “This person mentioned to me that this has some significance, because they’re trying to make the point that Al Qaida is making, that once the United States leaves, it doesn’t come back. And they were using the fact that there had been the attack on the Cole and we haven’t had a Navy ship that’s come back into Aden.

“And they used other examples – the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia – that once Americans have left places, they don’t come back. And if they leave in Iraq, they’re not coming back.”

Terrorists attacked a U.S. apartment building complex called Khobar Towers in June 1996, killing 20 people, including 19 U.S. service members, and wounding 372.

“It was just an interesting point,” Kennedy said, admitting it was “sort of an off-the-wall question.”

Vice Adm. Barry McCullough, deputy chief of naval operations, replied that he would check on the correct answer, supplied two days later by a Navy spokesman.

“The Navy has not conducted port visits in Yemen since the attack on the USS Cole,” said Lt. Clayton Doss. “We are working closely with Yemen on a range of issues, including the possibility of port visits.”

Kennedy said the issue came up when he was preparing for Senate hearings begun earlier on April 8 with Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. ground commander in Iraq.

So it was a high-level request. Interesting that the embassy confirmed Muellers demands for al Badawi (a Yemeni, and therefore unlikely to be handed over) and not ElBaneh, who holds an American citizenship and would presumably be easier to get…of course, I suppose Jaber would have to be locked up first before he could be extradited. True, al Badawi actually accomplished acts of terror while Jaber only helped plan foiled ones…but this also makes al Badawi more valuable to Saleh, as do his connections.

FBI director demands to extradite Al-Badawi

April 10, 2008- US Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller asked during his meeting with the Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh On Wednesday to extradite Jamal al-Badawi who is suspected with bombing the USS Cole destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden in order to prosecute him in an American court, U.S. Embassy source told Alsahaw.net.

The source pointed out that Mueller further discussed with Saleh issues of combating terrorism and updates of the investigations on the attacks which targeted the U.S. embassy on March 18 and the housing compound of Hadda on April 6.

FBI director said to Yemeni officials that the US embassy ordered non-essential staff and their families to leave Yemen due to those attacks which targeted the embassy and American oilmen , said the source.

Saleh had stressed, according to Saba agency, Yemen’s insistence to enhance ties and mutual cooperation with U.S., renewing Yemen’s demands of releasing Sheikh Mohammad al-Moayad and his companion Mohammad Zayed imprisoned in New York along with all Yemenis prisoners detained in Guantanamo.

The Mad Islamic Scientist speaking on his cure for AIDS at an “AIDS Conference.” I remember when he first announced that he had discovered a cure…we ran a nice (albeit sarcastic) piece congratulating him. We need to get this guy in touch with Pfizer. You can see past news of the Sheikhs discovery at Armies of Liberation.

UPDATE: Now in English.

الزنداني يتحدث في مؤتمر دولي عن الإيدز و القضاء عليه

أخبار الوطن: سيتناول آخر مستجدات اختراعه الدوائي للقضاء على فيروس الإيدز وسيتطرق للشهادات التي منحت لاختراعه

الأربعاء 09 إبريل-نيسان 2008 / مأرب برس– خاص

في إطار فعاليات المؤتمر الطبي الدولي الأول, تستضيف الجمعية الطبية الخيرية اليمنية مساء الجمعة القادمة الشيخ عبدالمجيد الزنداني – رئيس جامعة الإيمان- في محاضرة مفتوحة حول فيروس نقص المناعة (الأيدز) وما تم التوصل إليه من اختراعات دوائية للقضاء عليه

وقال مصدر مسئول في اللجنة التنظيمية للمؤتمر الطبي إن الشيخ الزنداني سيتناول في محاضرته هذه آخر مستجدات اختراعه الدوائي للقضاء على فيروس الإيدز وسيتطرق للشهادات التي منحت لاختراعه من مراكز علمية وطبية عالمية, إلى جانب أنه سيستمع إلى أسئلة واستفسارات الأطباء والصيادلة المشاركين في المؤتمر الطبي والمعرض السادس للأدوية اللذان يحتضنهما مركز اكسبو صنعاء

وذكر نائب رئيس الجمعية رئيس اللجنة التنظيمية للمؤتمر الطبي (الدكتور سامي زايد) إن قاعة المؤتمرات في مركز اكسبو صنعاء ستحتضن صباح الخميس القادم حلقة نقاشية حول (تحديد الاحتياجات والأولويات لقطاع الصيدلة في اليمن) سيشارك فيها نخبة من الخبراء والمتخصصين في مجال الصيدلة والدواء

وتواصلت أعمال المؤتمر الطبي الدولي الأول لليوم الثاني على التوالي والتي ستستمر حتى 13 ابريل الجاري, وشهدت قاعات مركز أكسبو ورش عمل مكثفة للمئات من أطباء الأسنان والفنيين والطب البشري في مجالات طب الحوادث والحالات الحرجة والطب النفسي, وتسوير العمود الفقري

وقال زايد إن أعمال المؤتمر تسير بصورة جيدة بفضل التفاعل الكبير من قبل المشاركين في ورش العمل لمختلف التخصصات

وتناول الخبير الأردني الدكتور رياض البطيخي عمليات تقويم الأسنان وتطرق الدكتور نصر القدسي إلى حوادث الحروق وكيفية التعامل معها خصوصاً من جانب أطباء الطوارئ

Blah Blah Blah… Is this a high-level bid for Elbaneh, or just a goodwill visit? Can’t help but compare Muller’s indication that:

“the strong, united and stable Yemen serves security and stability of the region and the world, expressing admiration of Yemen’s advance in democracy and development.”

To the letter from President Bush delivered by Fran Townsend that stressing that:

 “Yemen’s security, stability and unity a significant element for serving stability in the region, renewing his country’s confirmation on maintaining the support for Yemen’s security and unity as well as its progress in democracy and development…”

President Saleh meets FBI director

SANA’A, April 09 (Saba)- President Ali Abdullah Saleh met on Wednesday Director of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Robert Muller.

Mutual cooperation relations and joint cooperation ties between Yemen and the United States of America, especially combating terrorism, were discussed.

Muller hailed the existing partnership between the two countries, confirming the US support for Yemen’s efforts in combating terrorism fields.

He indicated that the strong, united and stable Yemen serves security and stability of the region and the world, expressing admiration of Yemen’s advance in democracy and developmental fields.

On his part, President Saleh confirmed Yemen’s interest to boost its relations and joint cooperation ties with the US to serve common interests of the two countries.

He also renewed Yemen’s demand of the US to extradite Mohammed Ali al-Moayyid and his colleague Mohammed Zaid, who are detained in one of US jails, to Yemen, in addition to other Yemeni prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.