USS Cole Bombing

The Search

Flanked by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, left, and the USS Ross, President Clinton and other military leaders address the families and friends of the sailors killed or missing as a result of the attack on the USS Cole.

(Photograph by PH3 Larry I. Hess)

The attack on the Cole is widely accepted to have been a terrorist attack, and although technically unsolved, most of the evidence indicates the involvement of the al Qaeda network. A lesser-known attempt on a U.S. ship had failed in a larger radical Islamic effort to ring in the new millennium with terror attacks. Around that time, a U.S. [Page 617]warship, the USS The Sullivans, was in Yemen, and some terrorists loaded a dinghy with explosives and sailed out to meet the ship. The dingy sank from the weight, and the would-be martyrs swam to shore and disappeared.

Throughout the investigation, a portrait of the Cole bombers and their methods emerged. Two men rented an expensive hilltop apartment with a sweeping rooftop view of the Aden harbor. They apparently spent considerable time observing harbor activities, including the comings and goings of large ships. They did not talk much with their neighbors, yet they spoke to local fishermen often, asking various questions, including how far one could sail in a dinghy. Shortly before the attack, the two men told neighbors they were going on a long trip and would be back around late December, the end of Ramadan. They have never been seen or heard from again.

Unearthing hard evidence, though, was next to impossible for investigators, as the American investigation team in Yemen was blocked at nearly every turn. When FBI officials first arrived, less than a day after the attack, Yemeni officials expressed suspicion about their investigation protocols, and FBI requests to interview high-level Yemeni officers were routinely denied. By the summer of 2001, the investigation had stalled and a wave of terror threats against the investigators caused new tensions. The FBI was forced to pull its team from Yemen. After the pullout of FBI agents, a video showing bin Laden praising the Cole bombing circulated in the Arab world.

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