Local
officials said seven other suspects in the Cole case remained in
prison.
Police
who inspected the facility after the escape found no trace of the
fugitives.
Authorities
announced a manhunt for the suspects, distributing their pictures to
police stations around the Aden area.
Yemeni
police have finished their investigation of the 17 men, carried out in
collaboration with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and
have sent their case to prosecutors.
But
the suspects, who could potentially face the death penalty, have not
been formally charged.
Yemeni
officials say the United States wanted to delay the trial until
prosecution of other key al-Qaeda figures.
Seventeen
US sailors were killed and 38 others wounded in the October 12, 2000
suicide attack, in which men rammed an explosives-laden boat into the
hull of the destroyer in Aden.
Yemen,
known for its tribal structure and widespread ownership of weapons,
has long been seen as a key recruiting ground for al-Qaeda.
One
of the poorest countries in the world, Yemen is the ancestral home of
the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden.
Yemen's
government rounded up more than 100 suspects after the September 11,
2001 attacks on the United States, although dozens have since been
released for lack of evidence.
At
the request of Washington, Yemeni police and armed forces began in
late 2001 tracking down suspected al-Qaeda members in the unruly
provinces.
President
Ali Abdullah Saleh has deployed troops mainly around suspected
al-Qaeda strongholds in the country's northeast, while the U.S.
military has been sent to assist in the training of the Yemeni army.
A
Yemeni man wanted by the FBI as a key planner of the Cole attack, Ali
Qaed Sunian al-Harithi, was killed with five other people in November
when a U.S. missile blew up his vehicle in eastern Yemen.
