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ADEN (AFP) - Yemeni police have found explosives in a car with a boat trailer attached abandoned in Aden during investigations into the suspected suicide bombing of a U.S. warship, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
The independent bi-weekly Al-Ayyam quoted residents of the Little Aden area of the southern city, adjacent to the port, saying the car was found under a bridge on Saturday, two days after the blast. U.S. investigators had questioned the owner of a flat in the same quarter who said he had rented it out to an Arab with a Gulf accent. The man spent one month in the flat before the explosion and had not been seen since, the independent paper reported. The Arab, who had done some soldering inside the flat, had a fiberglass boat with a trailer and a car, it said. The owner told the U.S. agents that the tenant provided two identity documents - a driving license and a car registration paper - but both were later found to be false, Al-Ayyam said. Meanwhile, the Yemeni Interior Ministry denied Wednesday reports that two Saudis had carried out the attack, which left 17 sailors dead. "These reports are totally baseless," the ministry told the official SABA news agency. The United States has flown scores of agents into Aden to investigate the causes of the blast after U.S. officials strongly suspected a suicide bombing, but little detail has emerged of their work. The U.S. ambassador to Yemen said Tuesday that "significant leads" had been received from the Yemeni government. "We have already received some information from the Yemenis that has provided some significant leads," Barbara Bodine said. "From that lead, we are hopeful that we'll get to the bottom of this. U.S. FBI director Louis Freeh was to travel to Yemen for the investigation, a senior administration official said, without saying when. "He said that the government of Yemen is now cooperating fully and genuinely," the official said. The blast on the guided-missile destroyer tore a gaping 30-foot (nine meter) by 40-foot (12 meter) hole in the portside hull, also causing extensive internal damage and flooding. The remains of six American sailors retrieved from the USS Cole were to be flown home Wednesday, a U.S. Navy spokesman said, as divers hunted for the last six missing seamen. "The remains of the six sailors retrieved Tuesday will be flown home via Germany on Wednesday. There could be more bodies on board the flight if more remains are found today," the official said. A full honor guard would be on parade at the airport from both U.S. and Yemeni troops, he added. "The investigation is ongoing, and divers are continuing the search to retrieve the six remaining bodies on board the ship," he said. The bodies of five of the 17 victims - who included two women aged 19 and 22 - were returned to the United States on Saturday. Some 33 injured U.S. sailors arrived home Sunday to a hero's welcome at the port city of Norfolk, Virginia, on a military transport plane from Germany. Two of the six most seriously injured members of the USS Cole crew are still at the U.S. military hospital in Ramstein, Germany. U.S. navigator Lieutenant Ann Chamberlain, who was on board the Cole at the time of the explosion, described it as akin to being rammed by another vessel. "I thought it was something that hit the ship. It felt like something ... a large ship ... rammed the ship," the 26-year-old Washington, D.C. native said. |
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