FBI to head back to Yemen for USS Cole probe

The terrorist attack killed 17 U.S. sailors and left a gaping hole in the ship's side.

By Andrea Koppel
CNN State Department Correspondent

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After an absence of more than two months, the State Department and the FBI have reached a tentative agreement on security arrangements for FBI investigators working in Yemen.

The arrangement paves the way for an FBI team to return to Yemen by the end of August, several administration officials tell CNN.

The FBI was in Yemen investigating last year's bombing of the USS Cole. "We don't have a date certain yet," explained one senior administration official who added that "hopefully (they'll be back) by the third week of the month."

The FBI pulled all of its investigators out of Yemen in June following a dispute between the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, and the FBI's lead supervisor of the investigator, John O'Neill, who wanted permission for his agents to carry heavier weapons in Yemen due to "specific and credible" security threats.

Officials reluctant to provide details

When Ambassador Bodine denied O'Neill's request, saying that FBI investigators would be protected by the same Diplomatic Security agents who guard U.S. diplomats at the U.S. Embassy, the FBI suspended its operation in Yemen.

In recent weeks teams from the FBI, the U.S. Navy and the State Department have been meeting in Washington and in Yemen to try to work out a compromise acceptable to all parties.

The latest meeting took place in Yemen and administration officials tell CNN, barring any last minute glitches, the FBI will be back in Sana'a "sooner rather than later."

Officials are reluctant to provide details of the compromise security arrangement for fear of tipping off terrorists in the region.

The plan is for team members to return from Yemen and meet early next week in the United States in order to finalize plans.

Investigators hope to 'pick up where they left off'

But one senior administration official, familiar with the details of these meetings, tells CNN "the only thing that could affect the intention to go back (this month) would be a dramatic change in the threat environment" in Yemen which has quieted down.

Since last October's bombing of the USS Cole at the Yemeni port of Aden officials say the United States is not yet able to say definitively who was responsible.

However one senior U.S. official says "our theory hasn't changed" that associates of Saudi militant Osama bin Laden were behind it.

Officials say they're hope is that once the FBI is back on the ground in Yemen investigators will be able to go through telephone records, interview and re-interview witnesses and suspects and the investigation will "be able to pick up where it left off" in June.