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-Qaida 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. Other men among the 10 were arrested earlier this month in a security sweep in the mountainous Abyan region in south Yemen.
Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, has been battling militants since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities focused attention on the impoverished country at the tip of the Arabian peninsula.
In the Cole attack of October 2000, two men on a small craft laden with up to 500 lbs. of high explosives pulled up to the Cole and rammed their boat into the guided missile destroyer as it was refueling in Aden port.
