[Washington Post] Ali H. Soufan - Seven years after al-Qaeda terrorists Jamal al-Badawi and Fahd al-Quso confessed to me their crucial involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole, and three years after they were convicted in a Yemeni court - where a judge imposed a death sentence on Badawi - they, along with many other al-Qaeda terrorists, are free. When the FBI arrived in Yemen, some government officials tried to convince us that the explosion had been caused by a malfunction in the Cole's operating systems. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh even asked the U.S. government for money to clean up port damage the U.S. "caused." Using DNA, we eventually discovered the bombers' identities, and, through other forms of forensics, we were able to identify more terrorists, track them down and prosecute them in Yemeni courts, disrupting further terrorist plots and protecting U.S. interests. If Yemen is truly an ally, it should act as an ally. Until it does, U.S. aid to Yemen should be reevaluated. It will be impossible to defeat al-Qaeda if our "allies" are freeing the convicted murderers of U.S. citizens and terrorist masterminds. The writer, an FBI supervisory special agent from 1997 to May 2005, led the FBI's Cole investigation that began on Oct. 12, 2000.
2008-05-22 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive