U.S. says 17 presumed dead in Yemen blast; injured evacuated

publiziert: Freitag, 13. Okt 2000 / 16:50 Uhr

Aden - U.S. investigators converged Friday at this Yemeni port where U.S. officials said an apparent bomb attack on a refueling U.S. destroyer killed 17 sailors.

More than 300 kilometers (200 miles) away in the capital, San`a, an explosion rocked the British Embassy 320 kilometers (200 miles). Windows shattered, but nobody was hurt. Britain's foreign secretary said a bomb may have been flung into embassy grounds. Authorities were investigating. Navy officials in the United States, meanwhile, said explosives experts who examined the USS Cole's damaged hull have concluded Thursday's blast came from an external source, adding to evidence it was deliberate. U.S. officials say suicide bombers blew up a small boat next to the 9,100-ton destroyer, ripping a hole at the water line.

Western diplomats in Yemen said the USS Cole explosion seemed to be the work of a well-organized group with good connections in the port of Aden who might have provided the bombers with some logistical support.

The diplomats, insisting on anonymity, said the boat used by suicide bombers was similar to boats used by port authorities to guide vessels into port or facilitate ships with refueling. Seven sailors were confirmed dead and 10 missing since the blast were presumed dead, according to U.S. Navy officials in Washington. Efforts to recover the remains of the missing were continuing, U.S. Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Cate Mueller said in Washington. About 33 sailors were injured.

Lt. Terrence Dudley, a Bahrain-based U.S. Navy spokesman in Yemen, said American military planes on Friday evacuated 22 of the injured from Aden to Germany for medical treatment. The French Defense Ministry said its army planes had taken 11 of the injured overnight to Bouffard military hospital in Djibouti, where six underwent surgery.

Dudley said some of the injured USS Cole sailors were in serious condition and others were stable. He did not elaborate. In Germany, officials at the Ramstein Air Base said they were expecting bodies of the dead sailors to begin arriving later today and the injured late Friday or early Saturday. The injured were to be taken to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a U.S. military facility.

American investigators as well as U.S. Marines and soldiers filled Aden, bringing in equipment to search for clues beneath the water near the USS Cole. Sniffer dogs also were seen being brought to the area. The HMS Marlborough, a British frigate, was heading to Yemen from the Gulf to provide technical assistance, Dudley said.

He said investigators may keep working at the site another two days. The USS Cole, one of the world's most advanced warships, was left slightly tilted in Aden harbor. "The ship took (in) some water and we are trying to dewater it. But, generally, it is seaworthy and we will tow it to the United States," said Dudley, of the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet. The Cole is a dlrs 1 billion guided missile destroyer home-ported at Norfolk, Virginia. It was heading with a crew of about 350 to the Gulf for maritime intercept operations in support of the U.N. embargo against Iraq.

U.S. embassies in the Middle East said Friday they had been ordered by the U.S. State Department to cease public operations until Monday in light of developments in Yemen and escalating violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Dave Ballard, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Cairo, Egypt, said the order affects the embassy's library and probably its visa operations. Because of the Friday-Saturday weekend in many Islamic countries, no practical effect would be seen in many countries until Sunday.

Anti-American sentiment has been running high in the Arab world where protesters have been condemning the United States during demonstrations against Israel's actions in two weeks of deadly clashes in Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories.

In Washington, U.S. President Bill Clinton said Thursday that the USS Cole explosion appeared to be an act of terrorism, the worst against the U.S. military since the bombing of an Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996 that killed 19 troops. "We will find out who was responsible and hold them accountable," Clinton pledged. He dispatched to Yemen investigators from the FBI, the State Department and the Pentagon and ordered a heightened state of alert for all U.S. military installations around the world. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Yemeni officials privately rejected the accusations of a suicide attack, saying a joint investigation is needed to determine the cause. President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Friday ordered his security staff to quickly investigate the blast, though Dudley indicated the Americans are conducting their own probe. Yemenis are helping with security, he said.

"The investigation is being done by our team and is being conducted quickly and fairly," Dudley said. "I can't go into the details." Yemeni police officials said a number of people had been detained for questioning. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not say how many or if any were considered suspects.

Yemeni police and soldiers sealed off the port area, preventing vessels from approaching the warship. Journalists were barred from the area. Yemen became a more frequent refueling stop for Navy ships after a December 1997 U.S. decision to open up contacts with the country. The impoverished country on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula on the Red Sea is known for its anarchic politics, streak of fundamentalism and routine snatches of Western hostages who generally are exchanged unharmed for government pledges to provide basic services.

Islamic extremists also have been active in Yemen, including the Yemeni Islamic Jihad and the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army. However, Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Karim al-Iryani said in March that the United States' most-wanted terror suspect, Osama bin Laden, at one time had "colleagues" in Yemen, but now "has no place in Yemen, no military camps."

The United States accuses bin Laden of organizing a militant network with followers across the Mideast, including Yemen, and says he masterminded 1998 bombings against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people.

(klei/AP)

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