From: Phil Dragoo
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2001 3:01 PM
Subject: O'Neill is chief of the national security division of the FBI's New York office
http://www.usstopekaclg8.org/News/NavalNews/ColeNews/1118_FBIProbeMovesAhead.htm
November 18, 2000
FBI: Cole probe moves ahead
Associated Press
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WASHINGTON — With their dispute over investigative procedures receding, Yemenis and the FBI have made so much progress probing the attack on the USS Cole that the bureau is bringing home more agents and its on-scene commander, a senior FBI official said Friday.
The announcement by Assistant FBI Director Dale Watson, head of the bureau's counterterrorism division, did not detail that progress. However, Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Karim al-Iryani said in an interview that the two men who carried out the suicide bombing last month have been identified as Yemeni veterans of the U.S.-backed guerrilla war to drive Soviet forces from Afghanistan.
Al-Iryani also told The Washington Post that one of the men who steered the small boat carrying plastic explosives into the U.S. ship was a Yemeni born in the eastern province of Hadramaut.
Although U.S. officials declined to comment on the Yemeni official's remarks, Watson said, "Investigation by Yemeni authorities and sustained cooperation with U.S. efforts continue to result in more than satisfactory progress."
"The pace of progress has enabled the FBI to further reduce in-country presence, having completed many aspects of the investigation," Watson added in a statement released here. "Because of the investigative achievements to date, the FBI will soon be able to bring home the FBI's senior onsite commander, John O'Neill."
O'Neill is chief of the national security division of the FBI's New York office, which is in charge of the Cole investigation.
The FBI presence in Yemen, which once involved more than 150 agents and evidence technicians, had dropped by late October to fewer than 40. The previous withdrawals came after most of the physical evidence was retrieved from the ship and from several houses in the port of Aden where the attackers apparently prepared their boat.
FBI officials said some agents would remain in Yemen after O'Neill returns but they would not predict how many.
U.S. officials said Friday they are near signing an agreement with the Yemenis on a resolution of the dispute between the FBI and Yemeni investigators over whether U.S. agents could interview witnesses and suspects in custody there. A formal written agreement has not yet been signed, but it appeared FBI agents would be able to observe interviews and submit questions, while not participating directly in questioning, they said.
That resolution would preserve Yemeni sovereignty while letting the FBI gather evidence that could be admitted to U.S. courts.
If FBI agents observe the questioning, they would be able to testify in any U.S. court that torture was not employed to obtain statements from defendants and witnesses. The FBI's goal throughout has been to charge the culprits in U.S. courts.
The Yemeni prime minister would not discuss other details learned in the investigation of the Oct. 12 attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors as the ship refueled in Aden. But he told the Post that authorities have solid leads to the identity of the second man, also thought to have been a native of Yemen.
U.S. investigators have said the attack bears the earmarks of followers of Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi millionaire and Afghanistan veteran who officials say ordered the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The prime minister said Yemeni investigators have not linked the Aden bombing to bin Laden, who has Yemeni citizenship by his father's birth in the Hadramaut region. But al-Iryani said a wider conspiracy seems obvious to Yemeni officials, who believe the Cole attack displayed technical savvy unknown in their country.
