ARAB-US RELATIONS - Oct. 29 - A Suspect In Cole's Bombing Handed Over.

Pakistani officials say a 27-year-old Yemeni microbiology student and an active member of Al Qaida network Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammad, wanted in the Oct. 12, 2000, bombing of the US destroyer Cole, has been secretly handed over to US authorities by the Pakistani intelligence agency. (Mohammad is the first person captured outside Yemen in connection with the bombing of the Cole. Seventeen sailors were killed and 39 others aboard the destroyer were wounded when suicide bombers pulled alongside in a skiff and detonated their explosives. Yemeni officials have arrested eight people in connection with the bombing). A Pakistani official calls Mohammad "a solid Al Qaida asset". His arrest can provide one of the most direct connections between Bin Ladin and the Cole bombing. (Mohammad arrived in Pakistan in 1993 from Taiz, Yemen, to study microbiology at the University of Karachi. But in 1996, he was asked to leave after failing to qualify for the honours programme. Later that year, he was arrested by Pakistani authorities in connection with the bombing in November 1995 of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad. He was released without being charged. Pakistani officials now believe the bombing was one of the first terrorist acts carried out by Al Qaida, which was just beginning to be a cohesive terrorist network).