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October 12 marks the 12th anniversary of the bombing of the USS Cole. The grim milestone comes as President Obama faces mounting questions about his administration's dereliction of duty during the murderous attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya. And it comes just a day after resurgent al-Qaida thugs pulled off the drive-by assassination of a top Yemeni security official who worked at the U.S. embassy in Sanaa. These are not "bumps in the road." These are gravesites on the blood-spattered path to surrender. Seventeen U.S. sailors died in the brutal suicide attack on the guided Navy missile destroyer as...

U.S. Frustrated By Elusive Justice Served to USS Cole Plotters May 04, 2008 It's been called "the forgotten attack" but it's one of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history. Eight years after the USS Cole was attacked by a motorboat packed with explosives, all of the six men convicted of the strike have escaped from prison, or been freed by Yemeni officials. Seventeen sailors were killed and 40 more wounded in the strike, blamed on Usama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Jamal al-Badawi, who helped organize the Cole plot, has reportedly escaped from Yemeni prisons twice. He is supposedly...

U.S. Embassy officials in Yemen visited a Yemeni man convicted in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in his prison cell yesterday, three days after he was seen greeting relatives in his house. U.S. and Yemeni officials confirmed the visit but declined to discuss details about its length or substance."We were able to physically confirm the presence of Jamal Badawi at a prison in Aden," a State Department official said. It was not clear whether it satisfied U.S. concerns about the status of the man, Jamal Badawi, who escaped from prison along with 22 other convicts last year and...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (AP) — The White House sharply criticized Yemen on Friday for releasing one of Al Qaeda’s masterminds of the bombing of the destroyer Cole in 2000 that killed 17 American sailors. Jamal al-Badawi, who is wanted by the F.B.I., was convicted in 2004 of plotting, preparing and helping to carry out the bombing of the Cole and received a death sentence that was commuted to 15 years in prison. - - - “The United States is dismayed and deeply disappointed in the government of Yemen’s decision not to imprison Badawi,” said Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House...

Yemeni al Qaeda leader Jamal Badawi has surrendered to police in Yemen. Badawi was the leader of the al Qaeda cell that responsible for the December 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen. Al Qaeda carried out the bombing using suicide attackers in explosive-laden inflatable boats. Seventeen 17 US sailors were killed in the strike. The FBI placed a $5 million reward for Badawi's capture. Badawi is believed to have surrendered to authorities after negotiations with the government to halt attacks in exchange for a reduced sentence or freedom if he promises to eschew violence....

BUFFALO, N.Y. - An American wanted for allegedly training with the "Lackawanna Six" at an al-Qaida camp was among the 23 men who tunneled out of a Yemeni prison last week, the FBI confirmed Friday. Authorities earlier said they believed Jaber Elbaneh, 39, was probably among the escapees, but were not certain because of conflicting information, including a posting by the international police organization Interpol that pictured Elbaneh but described someone else. Elbaneh is charged in Buffalo with providing material support to al-Qaida by attending the al-Farooq training camp run by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan months before the Sept....

SAN'A, Yemen (AP) --A Yemeni security court on Wednesday charged six Yemenis in the planning of the October, 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and said they belonged to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. Seventeen American sailors were killed when two suicide bombers in an explosives-laden boat rammed the USS Cole as it refueled in the southern port city of Aden. The bombing was blamed on bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network. Among the six charged in San'a Wednesday was accused mastermind Abdel Rahim al-Nasheri, said to be in U.S. custody, but it was unclear where. The other five were...

SANAA, March 19 (Reuters) - Yemen has recaptured two suspected militants thought to be the masterminds behind the 2000 bomb attack that killed 17 sailors aboard the USS Cole in the port of Aden, security sources said on Friday. Jamal al-Badawi and Fahd al-Qusaa were the last of 10 men rearrested by Yemeni police since escaping from jail in 2003. They are all suspected of links to Osama bin laden's al Qaeda network and most are accused of involvement in the Cole attack. The sources said Badawi and Qusaa were arrested on Thursday night but declined to give more details....

Police held for al-Qaida escape Reuters Monday April 14, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Yemen was questioning two senior secret-police officers yesterday after 10 al-Qaida suspects, including two linked to the suicide bombing of the American warship USS Cole, escaped from a Yemeni jail, an official said. "Two senior officials of the Political Security Organisation in Aden have been detained for questioning," said a government official in the capital, Sanaa. Jamal al-Badawi, the main suspect, arrested after the attack in October 2000, plus a suspected accomplice and eight men held for allegedly belonging to al-Qaida, escaped after drilling a hole in...

Suspects in USS Cole Attack Escape Prison Friday April 11, 2003 12:20 PM SAN`A, Yemen (AP) - Yemeni authorities were hunting for 10 of the main suspects in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole after they escaped from prison Friday, officials said. The fugitives, including chief suspect Jamal al-Badawi, had been jailed in the port city of Aden since shortly after the destroyer was bombed, killing 17 American sailors. Officials at Aden's governor's office would not say how the men escaped early Friday. But they quoted intelligence sources as saying security forces were out in force in a major...