Yemen Says It Has Evidence that U.S. Ship Blast Was Planned Criminal Act

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Monday October 16 7:15 AM ET Yemen Says U.S. Ship Blast Was Planned

ADEN (Reuters) - Yemen said Monday the explosion that crippled a U.S. Navy warship and killed 17 American sailors was a ``planned criminal act,'' the official Saba news agency reported.

It said President Ali Abdullah Saleh told General Tommy Franks, the commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, that ''preliminary results and important evidence reached by security forces in Yemen...indicate that it (the explosion) was a planned criminal act.''

The agency said the president expressed ``his regret and strong condemnation for this shameful act which was aimed at harming the relations of friendship and cooperation between Yemen and the United States.''

Saleh had initially said the explosion was not a deliberate act.

Defense Secretary William Cohen said Sunday there was little doubt the incident was a terrorist attack. He said the United States was no closer to determining who carried out the suicide attack against the USS Cole but that Saudi exile Osama bin Laden was among those investigated.

At least two Muslim groups have said they were responsible for the bombing and while Cohen said investigators take all claims seriously, it was ``premature to speculate.''

He said bin Laden, the exiled Saudi financier wanted by the United States for allegedly masterminding the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, could be responsible.

Saleh said Yemen and the United States would continue to cooperate to uncover further information and track down those behind the attack, Saba reported.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20001016/wl/yemen_usa_dc_4.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), October 16, 2000


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