|
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Editions | myCNN | Video | Audio | Headline News Brief | Feedback | |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Last 4 bodies from USS Cole come home as investigation continues
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Delaware (CNN) -- The remains of the last four sailors who were among the 17 killed in the attack on the USS Cole have arrived at Dover Air Force Base. The C-141 Starlifter carrying the remains touched down late Sunday morning.
The families of two of the victims, Kenneth Clodfelter and Patrick Roy, attended a ceremony on the tarmac as the caskets were removed from the aircraft. The families of the other two sailors were not in attendance. Adm. Christopher Weaver officiated at the ceremony, as the Navy Band played the song "Eternal Father," also known as "The Navy Hymn." The bodies of the four sailors were recovered Thursday. Following autopsies, the remains will be turned over to the victims' families. The remains of eight of the 17 sailors killed in the October 12 attack in Aden, Yemen, arrived at the Delaware base Friday. The first five were brought home October 14. The apparent suicide attack against the 505-foot Cole blasted a 40-by-40-foot hole in the ship's hull and also injured 39 sailors.U. S. Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine told a news conference on Saturday that the investigation into the bombing of the Cole was expanding and turning up new leads. "There are no conclusions yet on the investigation on either who, how, to a certain extent where and certainly not the why," she said. 'They're still developing new leads'"They are continuing to find investigatory sites, they're still developing new leads." Witnesses had said two men stood up in a small boat as it exploded alongside the guided missile destroyer. But Bodine said the joint team of Yemeni and FBI agents was still working on the numbers of people involved. "There are discussions about how many individuals might have been at the house, how many people might have been involved in the actual attack," she said. FBI agents in Aden, Yemen, have taken swabbings of explosive residue and other materials from the apartment where Yemeni security officials earlier this week discovered bomb-making materials. Scientists at the FBI lab were expected to receive and begin the analysis of the new batch of evidence this weekend. Evidence may still lead to bin LadenThe investigators are still assuming the evidence may eventually lead to a murky global terrorist network and to Osama bin Laden or his top associates, sources familiar with the investigation said. Yemeni officials are being fully cooperative in allowing U.S. agents to collect whatever materials they want in the investigation, U.S. officials said. Aden authorities believe the two bombing suspects built a metal fence along the house they rented in a suburban neighborhood to keep their activities hidden from neighbors, many of whom work at nearby oil storage depots. It was at that location that the suspects are believed to have built the bomb, packing a small boat with explosives. It was later taken on a trailer to a boat ramp about a kilometer, less than a mile, from the house. But the fence did not completely hide what was going on at the property: Workmen in a nearby building had a bird's eye view of the courtyard where the boat was kept. And a boy first told Yemeni police where the men launched the boat. Among the many people questioned in the case are the landlord of the rental property and a real estate agent who found it for the men. No criminal charges have yet been filed in the case. Materials from house on way to WashingtonOne veteran collector of explosive evidence for the FBI said residue on the doorknobs, beds, light fixtures and even drains of the house can provide clues to the precise makeup of the explosives. On Friday evening, bags of the collected materials were en route from Yemen to the FBI headquarters crime laboratory in Washington for analysis. Two officials said the material from the apartment would be compared with residue from the USS Cole, which arrived at the lab earlier this week. Sources said they have not yet definitively determined the specific explosives used in the blast, but expected they would probably be able to do so by early next week. The sources said reports of a search for two or more people, in addition to the two suspected bombers who are believed to have died in the explosion, is based on assumptions and eyewitness accounts. One of the difficulties for FBI investigators has been the reliability of eyewitness recollections, including the child who said he saw the alleged participants in the plot. FBI Director Louis Freeh and his top counter-terrorism aides returned home to Washington on Friday after a brief trip to the bomb scene in Yemen. But FBI officials said Freeh and his party had no further comment on the pace or direction of the investigation.
Videotape threat to U.S. forces in YemenThe United States accuses bin Laden of masterminding the 1998 bombings of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. But no one has publicly announced him as a suspect in the Yemen attack. The Taliban militia that rules Afghanistan denied this week that bin Laden was responsible for it. Bin Laden's close associate, Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, appeared with bin Laden on a videotape shown by the Middle East satellite network, al-Jazeera, about three weeks before the attack -- although U.S. intelligence officials tell CNN it is many months older than that. On the tape, al-Zawahiri makes a direct threat to U.S. forces in Yemen. According to a transcript of the broadcast he says: "Enough of words, it is time to take action against this iniquitous and faithless force (the United States), which has spread its troops through Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia." The New York Times reported Friday that U.S. intelligence officials received reports in late May that a militant Egyptian Islamic group was in the final stages of preparing a terror attack against American targets. The October 12 attack on the USS Cole killed 17 sailors and injured 39. Reuters contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES: Revised timeline raises new questions about USS Cole security RELATED SITES: U.S. State Department |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Back to the top |
© 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines. |
![[CNN Money]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/fn.logo.newsnet.gif){kind=logo}
![[SI.com]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/si.logo.gif){kind=logo}
(
