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USS Cole (DDG 67) suffered severe damage October 12, 2000 in a bombing attack when the ship was in the port of Aden, Yemen, for a routine fuel stop. Cole completed mooring operations at 9:30 a.m. Refueling started at 10:30 a.m. At 11:18 p.m. Bahrain time (3:18 a.m. EDT), a small boat approached the port side of the destroyer, and an explosion occurred causing a 40-foot by 40-foot gash in the port side of the Cole. Damage control efforts to manage flooding in the ship's engineering spaces were reported successful that evening. Divers inspected the hull and said the keel is not damaged.
Sergeant Darrell Samuel Cole,
United States Marine Corps Reserve
(Deceased)
USS COLE (DDG 67) is the first warship named for Sergeant Darrell S. Cole, USMC (1920-1945). Sergeant Cole was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his conspicuous gallantry in the campaign at Iwo Jima.
USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) and USS Hawes (FFG 53) made best speed to arrive in the vicinity of Aden that afternoon providing repair and logistical support.
Additionally USNS Catawba (T-AFT 168), USS Camden (AOE 2), USS Anchorage (LSD 36), USS Duluth (LPD 6), and USS Tarawa (LHA 1) arrived in Aden some days later, providing watch relief crews, harbor security, damage control equipment, billeting, and food service for the crew of Cole.
Seventeen sailors were killed and 39 others were injured in the blast which blew a hole in the port side of the destroyer. The injured sailors were brought to the US Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near Ramstein, Germany, and were later flown to the US.
Then-President Bill Clinton declared "If, as it now appears, this was an act of terrorism, it was a despicable and cowardly act. We will find out who was responsible and hold them accountable.". Of course, strictly speaking, it was not an "act of terrorism," since it was an attack on a military target. In any case, no action was taken.
Cole was transported from Aden by the Norwegian heavy transport ship M/V Blue Marlin. She arrived in Pascagoula December 24, 2000.
On January 19, 2001, The Navy completed and released its Judge Advocate General Manual (JAGMAN) investigation of the incident, concluding that Cole's commanding officer "acted reasonably in adjusting his force protection posture based on his assessment of the situation that presented itself" when Cole arrived in Aden to refuel. The JAGMAN also concluded that "the commanding officer of Cole did not have the specific intelligence, focused training, appropriate equipment or on-scene security support to effectively prevent or deter such a determined, preplanned assault on his ship" and recommended significant changes in Navy procedures.
Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:
The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Terrorist Attack on the USS Cole (10/12/2000) - Oct. 12, 2003
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THE ATTACK
HOW COULD two men in a small boat wreak so much damage on a $1 billion guided-missile destroyer equipped with all the latest defensive systems? Seventeen sailors died in the blast and the US Navy’s latest estimate of the cost of repairs is $240 million - $70 million more than at first thought. That is a quarter of the original construction cost, and it is conceivable that the ship may eventually be written off. The attack appears to have succeeded through a mis-match of technologies. American warships are well protected against the most sophisticated weapons that other countries might hurl against them, but they are far less well protected against a more basic kind of attack from an unexpected quarter.
The USS Cole left Norfolk Naval Station in the United States on August 8, 2000, for a five-month deployment which was to have included a port visit in Bahrain.
It passed through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea before arriving in Aden to refuel on October 12. According to Admiral Vern Clark, chief of Naval Operations, refuelling arrangements had been made 10 to 12 days earlier through the US embassy in Yemen - a standard procedure.
In Aden harbour, the ship did not dock at the quayside: refuelling takes place at a water-borne platform known as a dolphin. According to a US military source, the dolphin used by USS Cole is commercially-run and lies about 600 metres offshore, west of the historic Prince of Wales pier and about 100 metres east of CalTex island (see US Navy pictures of the location). The fuel contractor is Arab Investment and Trading, which is owned by a millionaire Yemeni living in London but also has heavy Saudi investment.
The propellers and shafts of the damaged destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67) on board the M/V Blue Marlin. Cole is being transported to the United States for repairs to damage sustained by the Oct. 12 terrorist bombing attack on the ship in the port of Aden, Yemen. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class J.B. Keefer.
The mooring operation was completed at 9.30 a.m. and, according to the US Navy, the ship began taking on fuel at 10:30 a.m. The ship’s records show that the explosion occurred at 11:18 a.m. - 47 minutes into the refuelling process, which takes four or five hours to complete.
There are some discrepancies in American accounts of the event, in particular timings. The US Navy initially said the explosion occurred at 12:15 p.m., while the ship was mooring. In this early version, the bombers’ boat was said to have aroused no suspicion because it seemed to be involved in the mooring operation, in which small boats are used to secure lines to the dolphin.
There may be a simple reason for these discrepancies. Naval sources suggest that since the explosion cut off the ship’s power and disabled its communications, the initial information reached the US second-hand and may have become garbled. However, a week elapsed before the navy issued its "corrected" version.
An important question for the US Navy is why lookouts on the USS Cole took no action to warn off the explosives-laden inflatable as it approached their ship. Depending on the precise rules of engagement, this may become a disciplinary matter, but it is worth noting that the early (now "corrected") version of events included a plausible excuse for the lack of action by the ship’s crew - i.e. the attackers’ boat was mistaken for a harbour craft assisting with the mooring. Early reports also mentioned that the two bombers stood to attention on their boat and saluted the USS Cole immediately before the explosion.
It later emerged that the guards on board USS Cole had instructions not to open fire unless fired upon, and that the weapons they carried were not loaded (AP, 14 November). Further internal investigations by the US Navy (AP, Reuters, ABC, 9 December) suggest that the crew - contrary to instructions - had failed to implement several basic precautions designed to protect the ship during refuelling:
- There was no co-ordinated effort to track the movement of small boats in the harbour;
- Fire hoses were not "at the ready" to drive away any small craft that came too close;
- The Cole's own small boat, which should have been used to investigate the approach of any suspicious craft, was not ready for launching.
Why these simple, obvious precautions were overlooked remains a mystery - especially in the light of previous threats and attempts to attack American interests in Yemen.
USS Cole is lifted by M/V Blue Marlin, a Norwegian dry dock vessel, off the coast of Aden, Yemen. Cole, damaged in an attack in Aden on Oct. 12, will be carried back to the United States by Blue Marlin over the next few weeks. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. M.C. Miller
THE CLAIM that the ship was attacked during the mooring process also gave rise to suspicions that the bombers must have had inside information about its impending arrival. But if the revised timings are correct, at least two hours would have elapsed between the USS Cole’s entry into the harbour and the moment of the attack.
If the bombers had already prepared the inflatable with its explosives and stored it somewhere in Aden, that should have been ample time to transport it to the sea, launch it and carry out the attack.
If more time were needed, then accomplices could easily have spotted the ship’s approach through the Suez Canal or at various points in the Red Sea. But there was probably no need even for that. Between three and six US naval ships were refuelling in Aden each month, so once the explosives were prepared it would only be a matter of waiting a few days for a target.
Aden’s natural harbour is large and the port facilities occupy only a small part of it. There are numerous places around the city from which shipping movements could be easily observed. Nor would there be any need for the bombers to sneak through port security: they could simply launch their craft elsewhere along the bay, outside the port area.
Yemen's initial reaction was that the explosion was probably not a bomb. The state-run television said that President Ali Abdullah Salih had spoken by telephone to US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and had "clarified to Albright that present information indicates that it was not a deliberate act."
Some Yemeni witnesses claimed there had been a fire on the warship before it exploded, and there were suggestions that it might have been caused by an accident during refuelling.
However, the Yemeni authorities moved swiftly to demonstrate their concern and an angry-looking President Salih was shown on television visiting the injured in hospital.
Once the Americans announced that the damage indicated an explosion from outside the warship, not from inside, the Yemeni authorities quickly accepted that it was a bomb.
THE BOMB
AMERICAN analysis of residues found in the wreckage indicates that the bombers used C-4, a military plastic explosive which has no non-military uses and is not available on the open market.. To some experts, this suggests the involvement of a state, or at least a well-organised group. C-4 was developed for the US in the Vietnam era. It has been sold by the US to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran (under the Shah), and several Nato countries possess it. The US also used it in the 1991 Gulf war.
The guided missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67) glides to sea this morning, passing Pascagoula area pleasure fishermen, to rejoin the U.S. Atlantic Fleet following 14 months of repairs after a terrorist bomb blew a hole in the port side of the ship while it was refueling in the port city of Aden, Yemen, on Oct. 12, 2000, killing 17 sailors. The repairs were done at the shipyard of Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, Ingalls Operations. U.S. Navy photo by Stacey Byington
The formula for C-4 is not secret, and quantities have occasionally been stolen. About 20 years ago, a former CIA agent was convicted of shipping 21 tons of C-4 to Libya - allegedly for terrorist training.
C-4 does not deteriorate with age, so the explosives used in the Aden bomb could, conceivably, have been stolen at any time since the Vietnam war.
It is possible that further analysis may indicate where the explosive was manufactured and thus open up a line of investigation into how the bombers obtained it.
It is, perhaps, worth noting that the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, for which Osama bin Laden has been blamed, did not use C-4 explosives, though they used detonators containing the C-4 component, RDX.
It is thought that the bombers used 400-700 pounds of explosives. This is a large amount to conceal aboard an inflatable. Although no details of the size and type of craft used have emerged so far, the bombers seem to have had trouble keeping it afloat during a test run (or previous bombing attempt) in January.
The Cole memorial was dedicated Friday, Oct. 12, one year after the attack, at the Norfolk Naval Station's Vista Point. The 10-foot-tall monolith is encircled by 17 granite slabs overlooking where ships leaving and returning from sea pass by.
The choice of C-4 indicates that the bombers had a reasonable level of expertise, because ordinary or home-made explosives would have been less effective. But it takes no more than a quick search of the internet to discover that if you want to blast a hole in metal - tanks, ships, etc - C-4 is the explosive to use.
The shape of the USS Cole, with its sides bending outwards, and pictures of the damage, show that the force of the blast was directed both sideways and upwards. It was not the sort of attack that is expected in modern warfare - which may also help to explain the extent of the damage.
According to Paul Beaver, of Jane's Defence Weekly, the ship was "designed to withstand saturation attacks by Russian aircraft and all sorts of things," but "not designed for asymmetrical warfare … it's not what people expect these days."
Yemeni sources say the attack on the USS Cole was not the first attempt to blow up an American warship in Aden harbour. An attack on the American destroyer, USS Sullivans, in January 2000 had to be abandoned because the attackers' boat almost sank under the weight of explosives (AP 11 November, CNN 12 November). It appears that as a result of this the bombers called on an unnamed foreign expert for advice, and that the expert may have helped to shape the charge used against the Cole, maximising its effect.
Additional Sources: www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia
www.openbibleministries.com
www.al-bab.com
www.chinfo.navy.mil
www.cole.navy.mil
www.uss-rangerguy.com
www.norfolk.navy.mil
www.cargolaw.com
