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by Luke Phillips ADEN (AFP) - The United States reported "some leads" Tuesday in the investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole after U.S. navy divers recovered the bodies of seven trapped sailors, a senior U.S. government official said.
"There are some leads now ... even though the investigation is at a preliminary stage," the official said in the first comments on the state of the probe into a suspected suicide bombing which blew a huge hole in the guided-missile destroyer Thursday. "I think we've got a very good start" on who committed the bombing, he said, adding he expected the investigation to be "very good in terms of cooperation and based on that, very good in results". "We are at the primary stages. Both sides will follow the investigation in a methodical, systematic way in whatever way it leads," he added. But the official refused to comment on unconfirmed reports that bomb-making equipment had been found in a flat overlooking the port rented by two Saudi nationals who have disappeared. "I'm not sure anyone's been arrested," he said. The U.S. official, who refused to be named, described the rounding-up by Yemeni authorities of what he put at "more than 75" Yemeni port workers for questioning was "a normal part of any investigation". Relatives of those questioned said 16 were still being held. A source close to the Yemeni side of the joint investigation said the inflatable boat used to bomb the Cole was not from any known shipping company. "The launch was not used by companies carrying out in-port services. The boat was manned by two unidentified people and circled the Cole before pulling alongside and detonating," the source said. U.S. Rear Admiral Mark Fitzgerald, Deputy Commander U.S. Naval Force Central Command, told reporters: "We have recovered seven bodies including two who were positively identified." The cause of death was "blast trauma". "We have not pinpointed the location of the remaining five," the commander of the military task force in Yemen added. U.S. navy divers were still trying retrieve the remaining bodies. The bodies of five of the 17 victims - who included two women aged 19 and 22 - were returned to the United States on Saturday. In Beirut, the previously unknown Islamic Deterrence Forces, which Friday claimed responsibility for the attack, said the bombing was a suicide operation by two "heroic martyrs." "We assert our responsibility for the second time for this attack and we now present the will of the two heroic martyrs who carried out the attack," the group said in statement. The bombers "wanted to say: our souls and our blood are a gift to the blessed al-Aqsa mosque and we offer them to end the injustice on our Muslim people in Palestine and to defend the honor and dignity of our Arab and Islamic nation." The operation was meant to tell "America that it will pay an expensive price for siding with the Zionist entity and for its arrogance and attempts to monopolize our nation with its gunships and military bases." "We will continue our jihad [holy struggle] against the American military presence in our Arab and Muslim world," warned the group. The crippled ship lies at anchor in Aden port and is due to be carried back to the United States inside a huge heavy transport vessel owned by Offshore Heavy Transport of Oslo. The operation to return the USS Cole to Norfolk, Virginia, could take up to seven weeks, the Pentagon said. Washington has sent hundreds of agents and half a dozen more ships to Aden to investigate the blast. Fitzgerald, meanwhile, said the arrival in Yemen of more U.S. warships was to "provide more flexibility" for the crewmembers of Cole and the hundreds of investigators that have descended on Aden. "We're trying to put more people afloat than ashore," Fitzgerald said, adding they would "help reduce the size of the [U.S.] footprint here [in Yemen]." |
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