Yemen Official: Detainees Linked to Cole By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press Writer
SAN`A, Yemen - Four of 32 militants captured in a crackdown by Yemen's security forces are linked to the October 2000 USS Cole bombing that killed 17 American sailors, an official said Tuesday.
The four were among 10 suspects who escaped from prison early last year, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The crackdown in the southern mountains led to the arrests of 32 suspects believed to belong to al-Qaida and other militant groups, including the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army and the Yemeni Islamic Jihad.
Senior al-Qaida agents Abdul Raouf Naseeb and Sayed Imam el-Sharif were among those captured, but the country's most-wanted man — Jamal al-Badawi — apparently slipped away with more than a dozen foreign fighters, witnesses and officials in the region said.
The official said Naseeb and four other suspects had been transferred to San`a for further questioning. There was no information on el-Sharif.
The official said 13 of the 32 suspects were released after they and their families promised to renounce violence.
Sixteen fighters from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates who were thought to be hiding in the mountains are believed to have slipped away, including al-Badawi, a Yemeni wanted in the United States and by his own government for the Cole bombing.
The crackdown, which ended Tuesday, followed reports of planned attacks in Yemen. Security has been tightened around embassies, foreign companies and government institutions in San`a, the capital.
Witnesses said military checkpoints around the mountains had been reduced and patrols were no longer visible — an indication the operation was over.
Yemen has allied itself with the U.S. war on terrorism, allowing American forces to enter the country and train its military. The country, which long has tolerated Muslim extremists, is the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden.