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Yemeni President Pledges Full Probe Into U.S. Destroyer Blast
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Thursday pledged full investigation into the cause of a blast, which ripped through a U.S. destroyer in a Yemeni port and killed at least four U.S. sailors.
Saleh said a joint U.S.-Yemen commission of inquiry would be set up to find out what caused the explosion when an explosive-laden rubber raft ran into a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea port of Aden on Thursday.
Ten sailors went missing and 31 others were reported injured, five of them seriously, the U.S. Navy said. Two Yemeni workers loading fuel on to the vessel were also wounded.
Saleh said he was "convinced" that terrorism was not behind the blast. He told U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright by telephone that according to first reports, the incident was not a deliberate act, the official Yemen News Agency reported.
If the incident is found out to be a deliberate act, said the president, those responsible will be tracked down wherever they may be.
However, he cautioned against drawing "hasty conclusions."
Saleh also reassured Albright that the wounded sailors were being treated in an Aden hospital, and offered his condolences to the families of the casualties.
The Arleigh Burke class destroyer was conducting in-port refuelling in Aden, Yemen, when an explosion occurred at 12:15 local time (0915 GMT), said a U.S. navy source based in the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.
The explosion rendered a big hole on the port side on the waterline of the 8,600-ton USS Cole missile destroyer, which has a crew of 350.
The flooding, caused by the blast, has been put under control and no fire was reported. Yemeni security forces have sealed off the port.
The destroyer, which went through the Suez Canal Monday, was heading to the Gulf to join the U.S. Navy which has been patrolling Gulf waters to enforce the U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
So far no one has claimed responsibility for the incident, which was described by United States Navy officials as a "suicide mission."
U.S. President Bill Clinton said Thursday that the attack on the U.S. warship "appears" to be terrorism, and vowed to find out those responsible.
In Washington, the Defense Department said it had "every reason" to suspect terrorism was behind the explosion.
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