Investigators find link between Cole, African embassy bombings

SAN'A, Yemen - A composite sketch of one of the two suspected USS Cole suicide bombers appears to match that of a man wanted for questioning in connection with the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, a Yemeni source close to the Cole investigation said Thursday.

The suspect's name was not given.

A senior U.S. law enforcement official in the United States declined to comment on the reported resemblance. But the official did say that since the beginning of the Cole investigation there have been a number of threads that appear to link the case to the bombings in East Africa.

U.S. investigators have said the Cole attack bears the earmarks of operations carried out by followers of Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi millionaire and Afghanistan war veteran whom officials say ordered the Africa bombings. The simultaneous August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 224 people.

The Cole attack came on Oct. 12 in the Yemeni port of Aden. Two suicide bombers brought a small boat laden with explosives alongside the Cole and detonated it while the destroyer was refueling, killing 17 U.S. sailors and injuring 39. U.S. and Yemeni officials have said the attack appeared to be a carefully planned, well-financed operation, and the bomb materials were expertly prepared.

American officials have said they believe the operation was carried out by a network of small cells of two or three people, probably from one or more anti-American Islamist organizations, including the Islamic Jihad, Egypt's al-Gamaa al-Islamiya and bin Laden's followers. All have connections to Afghanistan and are believed to have had operations in Yemen.

Officials have suggested that the attackers may have come from various Arab countries, including Yemen, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and that they may be operating from Afghanistan, Yemen, or possibly both countries.

U.S. agents have also speculated that Yemeni officials at various levels may have been somehow involved in the bombing. Dozens of low- and mid-level Yemeni officials were detained for questioning last week, though none of the officials or suspects have yet been formally charged.

In the weeks immediately following the Cole bombing, there was tension between U.S. officials from the FBI and Yemeni authorities over American access to evidence and suspects.

However, U.S. agents have recently had a greater role in the investigation. Over the past few days, U.S. investigators in Aden have attended several interrogations of six men considered to be the main suspects, said the Yemeni source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. They had already been allowed to question eyewitnesses.

Bin Laden, who lives in exile in Afghanistan, was indicted in 1998 on 24 counts of murder and various other charges related to the 1998 embassy bombings.