Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Cole investigators seeking links to Osama Bin Laden

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Saturday, October 28, 2000

Cole investigators seeking links to Osama Bin Laden
But there's still no direct evidence tying the accused terrorist to the bombing that killed 17
By Robert Burns
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Osama Bin Laden, the elusive Islamic militant who has publicly pledged to drive the U.S. military out of the Middle East, is a focus of the USS Cole bombing investigation, but investigators have no hard evidence he was behind it, several American officials said Friday.
   Meantime, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and FBI Director Louis Freeh appealed in a joint statement for greater cooperation from the Yemeni government.
   FBI agents have encountered the same problem they had in an earlier terrorism investigation in Saudi Arabia - no direct access to suspects.
   The FBI, working with Yemeni authorities in the port of Aden, where the Cole was attacked Oct. 12 by a small boat laden with explosives, has finished examining the crippled ship and scouring various locations in Yemen for physical evidence, Albright and Freeh said.
   They did not identify the sites.
   But officials have said they include several houses thought to have been used to prepare the attack.
   Bin Laden, a millionaire Saudi-born dissident wanted by the FBI in the 1998 terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people, is believed to be living in Afghanistan.
   Suspicion of a bin Laden link to the Cole bombing arose almost immediately, in part because his Afghan-based organization, al Qaida, is said to have been behind previous bomb attacks on U.S. personnel in Yemen.
   The attack on the Cole as it was refueling in Aden - killing 17 U.S. sailors - has the earmarks of a carefully planned, well-financed operation, and the bomb materials were expertly prepared, U.S. and Yemeni officials have said.
   Asked whether a clear link has been established to bin Laden, FBI spokesman Jim Margolin said Thursday, "That's an obvious question that's being looked into.
   "We're not confirming such a link exists."
   Margolin said the FBI would not comment further.
   Bin Laden, the son of a billionaire Saudi Arabian family, is on the FBI's list of 10 most-wanted fugitives.

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