-Caveat Lector-
CNS: Foreign
Bureaus
Time: 7:27 PM,Thursday, October 12, 2000
Militant Yemeni Group Claims Responsibility for Warship Attack
By Patrick Goodenough
CNS London Bureau Chief
October 12, 2000
London (CNSNews.com) - A Muslim leader in Britain with links to
the Saudi-born terror chief Osama bin Laden said Thursday a
Yemeni Islamist group has claimed responsibility for the suicide
attack on an American warship in the Yemeni port of Aden, and
has promised more strikes.
Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Syrian-born activist and judge of
the UK Shari'a [Islamic law] Court, said in an exclusive telephone
interview with CNSNews.com that he had received a communique
from a group calling itself the "Army of Mohammed" and the "Army
of Aden-Abyan," saying it had carried out the assault.
Bakri welcomed the attack, and said all American and Israeli
buildings and forces, anywhere in the world, were legitimate targets.
At least four American servicemen died when a small, explosives-
laden rubber raft rammed into port-side hull of the destroyer, USS
Cole. The death toll was later revised to five.
Bakri said the Arabic-language communique, from a group calling
itself the "Army of Mohammed/Army of Aden-Abyan" was now
being translated and circulated among various parties to establish
whether it was legitimate.
The document said the bombing was "not the first and not the
last," he added.
Bakri said he knew of the group, although he did not know the
people involved personally. He confirmed that Yemen is one of the
countries to which he has sent British Muslim recruits for jihad
[holy war] training abroad.
On October 2 Bakri issued a fatwa (religious ruling) calling on
Muslims to attack Israeli targets, including embassies, airports,
institutions and security forces, in response to the violence in the
Middle East.
The ruling also said: "Islam obliges us to liberate all Muslim land
from occupiers whoever they may be whether American, Jewish
Israeli or other forces."
Bakri has in the past issued statements supportive of terrorism,
including the 1998 bombing of American embassies in East Africa.
He has frequently expressed support for bin Laden, the prime
suspect in the embassy bombings.
Yemeni Militants
According to an article in the Yemen Times last month, the "Army
of Aden-Abyan" was set up in 1997 and had been involved in the
kidnappings of westerners. Aden-Abyan is a district in Yemen.
The same article stated that bin Laden was "considered to be the
supporter as well as the supervisor" of the jihad movement in
Yemen.
Last year's U.S. State Department report on global terrorism refers
to an "Islamic Army of Aden," one of whose leaders was executed
last year after being convicted of the 1998 kidnapping of 16 western
tourists, including two Americans.
The Israeli-based Institute for Counter-Terrorism, reporting on the
same incident, called the group the "Aden-Abyan Islamic Army."
A report on the ICT website, by U.S. Mideast Affairs specialist
Kenneth Katzman, says: "Little is known about the group, but it
advocates the imposition of Islamic law in Yemen and the lifting of
international sanctions against Iraq, and opposes the use of
Yemeni ports and bases by U.S. other Western countries."
The London Times reported in January 1999 that American
suspicions of links between Yemen militants and bin Laden could,
if confirmed, result in the U.S. and Britain reconsidering plans to
use Aden as an important refueling station.
Paul Beaver, spokesman for the UK-based Jane's Defense Weekly,
said Thursday that bin Laden has been criticizing the Yemen
government in recent days for not taking a tougher line with the
U.S. over the violence in Israel and the PA self-rule areas.
He said there were a number of possible perpetrators of Thursday's
strike.
"Osama bin Laden is a possibility, the new PLO faction [Tanzim],
Hamas, Hizballah, anyone really. A lot of people have a few
grievances at the moment."
Along with other Arab and Muslim countries, Yemen has been the
scene of massive protest demonstrations since the outbreak of
violence in Israel a fortnight ago.
In the capital Sanaa, demonstrators last weekend marched to the
American Embassy where they delivered a letter condemning the
U.S. policy with regard to Israel and the Palestinians.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told a television station in the
United Arab Emirates that he wished that Yemen was a country
neighboring the PA areas," the Yemen Times reported this week.
If it was, he said, Yemen "would have opened the borders before
the Palestinian mujahidin [fighters] and supplied the Palestinian
people with weapons to force that entity [Israel] to recognize the
Palestinian rights by force."
Beaver said the USS Cole, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, was
"one of the latest American warships, designed to withstand
saturation attacks by Russian aircraft and all sorts of things. It's
not designed for asymmetrical warfare," he said, adding that no
warships were. "It's not what people expect these days."
Beaver said there had been attacks on western naval vessels in the
past, "but not for some time."
Asked about suspicions of responsibility for the attack, a
spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Chris Eccel, said by
phone Thursday: "We have no information on this."
Eccel confirmed that security had been stepped up, with a "warden
system" in place and American warned to "exercise a high level of
vigilance."
Yemen is an Arab country on the south coast of the Arabian
peninsula, reunited in the mid-1990s after a long civil war. Aden
was a strategic British colony until 1967, and at one time the
world's second busiest port.
Operations of the USS Cole, based in Norfolk, Virginia, fall under
the Tampa-based U.S. Central Command,, responsible for
American security interests in 25 countries from the Horn of Africa
through the Gulf into Central Asia.
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