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Yemeni President Says Clues Found for US Destroyer Blast
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said Wednesday that important clues have been uncovered on the bombing of a United States naval destroyer in the Aden port in southern Yemen last week that killed 17 American sailors.
Speaking to Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite television, Saleh said "We were able to discover the car that transported the boat, and the launcher that lowered the boat, and we found the workshop that made the engine and the house that the people who carried out the crime were living in."
Saleh said two people, who were believed to be on the raft, were killed in the blast themselves.
Asked about the identities of the two attacks, Saleh said documents showed that one of the attackers came from Hadramount (central Yemen) and lived in Lahj (southern Yemen).
The two people "had to be Arabs because witnesses said they were performing (Muslim) prayers," he said, "They may be Yemenis or other Arabs."
The USS Cole destroyer was docked in a port in Aden for refuelling when a small rubber raft laden with explosives rammed into it and detonated on October 12. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed in the blast and about 40 others were injured.
Investigators said the incident was a "suicide attack."
Meanwhile, Saleh said a member of the Islamic Jihad group had been arrested in connection with the grenade attack on the British embassy in Sanaa on October 13. No one was injured in the attack.
"A member of the Jihad was responsible for the attack on the British embassy in Sanaa and he has been arrested," he said in the live interview.
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