SANNA, 17 March 2004 — Yemeni security forces have captured a man believed to have been involved in the October 2000 attack on the US warship USS Cole, it was reported yesterday.
Ali Muhammad Omar Shurbaji was arrested overnight in the southern province of Abyan, reported the website of the ruling GPC party. Two other suspects in the bombing who escaped from jail last year have surrendered to the authorities.
“The two suspects surrendered thanks to mediation efforts by officials of the Lawdar region” in Abyan, a security source said on condition of anonymity. The source named the two men as Khaldoun Mohammed Nasher and Mohammed Abdullah Dahmane.
Abyan was the scene of a weeklong hunt operation for suspected Islamic militants early this month. The report said Shurbaji was “one of the most dangerous wanted over the attack on the US destroyer”.
It said security forces were still pursuing three other fugitives suspected to have links to sabotage acts in the country.
Six suspects in the Cole bombing surrendered to authorities last week. The six were among a group of 10 who escaped from a prison in the southern port city of Aden in April 2003, where they had been awaiting trial for alleged involvement in the October 2000 attack on the US destroyer.
The suspects broke out of the high-security prison, reportedly by drilling a hole in a bathroom wall.
Security forces have failed to locate the escapees despite a major search operation and are also believed to be questioning friends and relatives of the fugitives as well as warders at the prison.
Other suspects were still hiding in the region’s rugged Jebel Thira mountains to which access is difficult, officials said, adding that the fugitives had been given an extended ultimatum to surrender.
Seventeen US sailors were killed in the attack, when a small boat loaded with explosives rammed the destroyer as it was refueling in Aden harbor.
Yemen, seen in the West as a stronghold for Islamic militants, has been cooperating with the United States in chasing terror suspects since the Sept. 11 attacks.
