WASHINGTON — After nearly three years of investigation, the Justice Department has won its first indictments in the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole, charging two suspected Al Qaeda operatives with blowing up the $1-billion warship in the Yemeni port of Aden in 2000 and killing 17 sailors, officials said Wednesday.
Senior department officials were expected to announce the sealed indictments today, after flying the families of the 17 sailors and surviving victims of the Cole attack to Washington for the event.
"This is something that we have been working toward since Oct. 12," a senior U.S. official said, referring to the day in 2000 when two men in an inflatable boat approached the Cole, saluted sailors on board and detonated enough high-grade explosives to nearly sink the ship.
"The investigation has been open since that day," he said.
The two Yemeni nationals who were indicted, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed Quso and Jamal Mohammed Ahmad Ali Badawi, escaped from a Yemeni prison last month under mysterious circumstances with eight other suspected Al Qaeda members. Badawi is believed to have bought the boat that rammed the Cole.
The whereabouts of Quso and Badawi were unknown, authorities said Wednesday. The FBI described the men as being armed and extremely dangerous.
The indictment also names as unindicted co-conspirators in the case two senior Al Qaeda operatives, Tawfiq Attash, also known as Khallad, and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri. Both men, who are in U.S. custody, are considered to be even higher-ranking players in the Cole bombing than Quso and Badawi.
Law enforcement sources said the Justice Department considered seeking indictments against Attash and Al Nashiri but decided not to out of concern that criminal charges might disrupt their ongoing interrogations, which are occurring overseas in undisclosed locations.
The indictments were returned Monday by a federal grand jury in New York that has been hearing evidence in the case for years under extraordinarily tight security measures.
The indictments are considered a major victory for the Justice Department, which in recent months has wrestled with other U.S. government agencies over whether the men should be prosecuted through the federal court system or through military tribunals, in which details of the case could be withheld from public view.
