- SANAA/WASHINGTON (Reuters)
- A missile fired by an unmanned U.S. aircraft has killed six alleged members
of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in Yemen, including a key suspect
in an attack on a U.S. warship two years ago, a U.S. official said on Monday.
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- The official told Reuters in Washington that a Central
Intelligence Agency drone carried out Sunday's attack on a car carrying
the six which Yemen said included one of two key suspects sought as leading
al Qaeda operatives in the Arab country.
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- The dead man, Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, also known as Abu
Ali, was suspected of involvement in the 2000 suicide bombing of the U.S.
warship Cole in a Yemeni port that killed 17 U.S. sailors.
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- Washington blames that blast in Aden and the September
11 attacks in the United States on the Saudi-born bin Laden, whose ancestral
home is Yemen.
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- The U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said
the American military was not involved in Sunday's attack.
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- "As I understand it, it was an agency drone"
that conducted the strike, said the U.S. official, who did not give details.
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- The CIA previously has used remote-controlled "Predator"
drones to fire missiles at suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
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- The Defense Department and CIA refused to comment.
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- A Yemeni Interior Ministry official told Yemen's Saba
news agency that arms, traces of explosives and communications equipment
were found in the car in which the six suspected al Qaeda members were
traveling in eastern Marib province.
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- Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world,
is keen to shake off its image as a haven for Muslim militants and says
it is holding 85 suspected members of al Qaeda.
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- ANTI-TERROR COOPERATION WITH YEMEN PRAISED
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- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had earlier refused
to say whether U.S. forces or CIA agents had any part in the blast, but
he praised anti-al Qaeda cooperation with Yemen.
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- "There is no question but that there are al Qaeda
in Yemen," Rumsfeld told reporters. "The (U.S.-Yemen) arrangement
has been a good one and it is ongoing."
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- U.S. military trainers were sent this year to advise
Yemeni troops on striking al Qaeda guerrillas believed hiding there.
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- "It would be a very good thing if he were out of
business," he added of reports that one of the six people killed was
wanted in connection with the attack on the Cole.
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- President Bush did not comment directly on the Yemen
incident, but reiterated he was determined to break up al Qaeda.
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- "The only way to treat them is (for) what they are
-- international killers. And the only way to find them is to be patient,
and steadfast, and hunt them down. And the United States of America is
doing just that," Bush said. "We're in it for the long haul."
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- Yemeni authorities have been hunting militants believed
to be sheltering in the rugged mountains between Sanaa and Marib, a stronghold
for disgruntled tribesmen who have often kidnapped tourists and foreigners
in Yemen in recent years.
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- Saba news agency said police arrested two people suspected
of a separate attack on Sunday on a helicopter of Hunt Oil, a U.S. firm
working in Yemen. One person was slightly hurt when gunmen fired at the
helicopter after it took off from Sanaa for Marib.
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- The attack on the car coincided with a visit to Marib
by the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, but a source close to the embassy told
Reuters that there was no link between the visit and the blast or the attack
on the helicopter.
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- A French supertanker was also holed in an apparent attack
off the Yemeni coast last month, almost two years after the Cole attack.
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- The U.S. military has 800 or more Marines and elite Special
Operations troops and, according to published reports, some CIA paramilitary
personnel in the Horn of Africa. Many of the troops are at a French military
base in Djibouti and aboard U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea.
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