Suspect in USS Cole bombing kills self in Yemen :: essays research papers

A pretend al Qaeda terrorist wanted in link with the October 2000 bombing of the USS shekels blew himself up with a grenade juvenile Wednesday as Yemeni security forces closed(a) in on him in Yemens capital city, security sources said. Authorities had foreg unity to a suspected al Qaeda hideout, a house in a poor section of Sanaas downtown, and a firefight ensued. The suspect jumped into a taxi, and as authorities tried to stop the vehicle, the man pulled out a grenade and was ostensibly trying to throw it when it exploded in his hand, sources said. A police dictation identified the suspect as Sameer Mohammed al-Hada, a 25-year-old Yemen native. He was adept of the nigh important people on a list of wanted al Qaeda suspects that the United States had given to Yemeni formals, sources said. Al-Hada was wanted in connection with the bombing of the Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors and wounded 39. Yemeni security sources said al-Hada had trained in Afghanistan. Security sou rces said al-Hadas family extensive ties to terrorism. One of al-Hadas sisters was espouse to one of the suspected September 11 hijackers who piloted an American Airlines jet into the Pentagon. His other sister, they said, is married to Mustafa Abdulkader Aabed al-Ansari, a Yemen native whose name showed up on an FBI terrorist alert late Monday. In that alert, the FBI warned law enforcement agencies and the public to be on the lookout for 18 suspected al Qaeda operatives, most from Yemen, who are planning an set upon against U.S. interests. Al-Hadas name was not on the terror alert. In addition, one U.S. official said, al-Hada "was also the son of a man believed to be prominent in Al Qaeda." Yemen cracks down on al QaedaThe relationship mingled with the United States and Yemen occasionally became strained in the months following the Cole bombing, with ethnic differences hindering cooperation between the two countries. That changed following the September 11 attacks on Ne w York and Washington. Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, visited Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Salih this week, and President bush called Salih on Monday, thanking him for his countrys cooperation in the fight against terror. One U.S. official said Yemen had "one of the most significant" al Qaeda organizational links in the world. Thousands of veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war live in Yemen and are capable of launching " unorganised or coordinated attacks," diplomatic sources told CNN in October.