ARAB-US RELATIONS - June 17 - FBI Withdraws Cole Blast Investigators.

The FBI orders all US investigators into the Oct. 12, 2000 suicide bombing of the US destroyer Cole out of Yemen. (This coincides with the arrest by Yemeni authorities of 9 suspected terrorists for allegedly plotting an attack against the US embassy in Sanaa. They were found with hand grenades, small arms and documents, including a map of the US Embassy in Sanaa, and are believed to be affiliated with the Islamic Army of Aden, a fundamentalist group linked to the Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden. On June 18, Yemeni Interior Minister Rashad Eleimi met the US Ambassador Barbara Bodine and discussed security co-operation. Patrols and checkpoints were seen in streets close to the embassy). FBI spokesman John Collingwood said on June 18: "There is a very real and credible threat specifically against those investigating the Cole bombing... We thought it prudent to remove our personnel". State Department spokesman Richard Boucher questioned the FBI's decision, saying: "Our diplomatic security people are the ones who have responsibility and who do provide the security for all the personnel at the mission, irrespective of agency". But he added: "In the end, if somebody doesn't want to be there, feels there's a particular reason not to be there, nobody forces them to stay". Collingwood said the FBI "appreciated" the State Department's "support for our return to Yemen" and was assessing when it was best to return investigators to the country.

(US agents from the FBI and the Navy Criminal Investigative Service had been in Yemen since the Cole suicide bombing which killed 17 sailors and wounded 39 others. Several suspects in the bombing have been detained by Yemeni authorities, but US officials have asked for a delay in their trial until those thought to have masterminded the attack are caught. US investigators have been trying to determine whether Osama Bin Laden is linked to the bombing but have yet to announce a definitive relationship. Immediately after the Cole bombing, an individual in London who claimed to be speaking for the Islamic Army of Aden took responsibility for the attack. But US investigators have not attributed the bombing to this organisation. A US official said on June 18 Bin Laden had helped form the group several years ago and provided some training for its members in Afghanistan. US counter-terrorist authorities consider the group, also known as the Aden-Abyan Army, as a bin Laden "affiliate". A relatively new organisation, the Islamic Army of Aden was on record as opposing visits by US ships to Yemeni ports prior to the Cole bombing. In December 1998, the group kidnapped 16 Western tourists, prompting a gun battle with Yemeni government troops in which four of the hostages died. The government executed the group's leader after he and three others were convicted of leading the kidnapping, and said at the time that it had crushed the organisation).