Blast Rips U.S. Warship in Yemen

An apparent bomb carried on a small boat blasted a huge hole in a U.S. Navy ship refueling in Yemen on Thursday, killing six sailors and leaving 11 others missing and feared dead.

In what appears to be the third major attack on U.S. personnel in the Mideast since 1996, two men apparently detonated explosives in the small vessel as they were helping to moor the guided-missile destroyer Cole at a refueling barge in the busy Arabian Peninsula port of Aden.

Witnesses saw the men they assumed to be port contract workers steer their boat against the port, or left, side of the 505-foot destroyer, then stand at attention as the apparent bomb exploded, Navy officials said.

The apparent attackers were believed to have been killed at 12:15 p.m. as the blast ripped a 20-by-40-foot hole in the half-inch-thick steel plate at the waterline near midships. Local hospitals were caring for 35 injured sailors.

President Clinton denounced the explosion as a “despicable and cowardly act” and vowed, “We will find out who was responsible and hold them accountable.”

While U.S. officials had not declared for certain late Thursday that the blast was the work of terrorists, they left little doubt of their view.

“I have no reason to think this was anything other than a senseless act of terrorism,” Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, said at a Pentagon briefing.

This morning, a powerful explosion shattered windows at the British Embassy in Sana, the Yemeni capital, but there were no injuries, witnesses said.

Windows also were smashed at an adjoining school. The explosion apparently was in the embassy courtyard and shook the entire neighborhood, said Hisham al Qubati, a secretary at the nearby Yemen Times building.

Yemen, a poor country with a recent history of Marxism and internal strife, has a sizable Palestinian population and, reputedly, several terrorist cells. There have been large Palestinian demonstrations over current clashes between Israelis and Arabs in the Middle East, and anger at Israel and the U.S., its ally, has bubbled over.

But U.S. officials said they had no evidence so far that local unrest was connected to the bombing.

The United States has made several moves in the past three years to improve relations with Yemen. The Navy’s 1999 decision to resume refueling stops in Aden was motivated in part by a desire to strengthen ties, officials said.

The explosion left the Cole, a $1-billion destroyer with a crew of more than 325 and a home port of Norfolk, Va., listing 5 degrees to the left. Seawater flowed freely into engine rooms hit hardest by the blast, Pentagon photos showed. But there was little danger of the vessel sinking after the crew sealed off bulkheads and interior doors and set up pumps, officials said.

The blast ripped into the ship in a section that contained the main engine room, an auxiliary engine space, mess areas and berthing space.

The Clinton administration dispatched investigators from the FBI and the Marine Corps Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team to Yemen to begin searching for evidence. Military authorities sent aircraft and ships to assist in medical emergencies and help evacuate the injured to hospitals abroad.

U.S. Troops in the Region on High Alert

Other U.S. ships and troops in the region were put on high alert, and Navy vessels in nearby ports were sent to sea for greater safety.

Protection of U.S. troops has been a top Pentagon priority, especially since a terrorist bomb crushed a U.S. Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and twin explosions in 1998 ripped U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. But Navy officials insisted there was no way they could have anticipated or prevented a bombing from attackers who disguised themselves as friendly port workers to get close to the ship.

“It’s difficult, if not impossible, to protect against this kind of threat,” said Clark, who was formerly commander of the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet.

The Navy arranges refueling stops in foreign ports such as Aden by going through government channels to find a local prime contractor, called a “husbanding agent.” U.S. officials look into the agent company’s background to see if it is reliable and solvent but don’t give it a full security check, Navy officials said.

In this case, the U.S. Embassy in Sana was notified at least 10 days ago, perhaps longer, that the Cole would be arriving for refueling. The Navy said the ship’s visit was known to a number of local U.S. officials, Yemeni government personnel and many employees of the local contractor. Navy ships have refueled in Aden three times since May under this contract without incident, officials said.

Refueling Steps Had Just Begun

When the Cole entered the harbor, the port service boats approached to begin an operation that usually takes four to six hours, according to a Navy spokesman at the U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. Their deckhands took the 5-inch-thick mooring lines from the Cole and attached them to buoys around a refueling barge, called a dolphin.

After the lines are attached, the ship can maneuver into position to receive the fuel.

This initial mooring procedure, which usually takes about an hour, had barely begun when the explosion occurred, Navy officials said.

The Cole’s crew was at its work stations for what is known as a “sea and anchor detail,” officials said. For security in an operation like this, lookouts are posted on deck and a number of crew members are equipped with small firearms, officials said.

The Cole also had prepared a special “force protection plan” for the visit that spells out security procedures, Clark said. It details the risks, the countermeasures and even where injured would be sent in the event of an attack.

But it is not routine procedure to send out security details to inspect contract boats before they approach a Navy ship, officials said, and that did not happen in this case.

“Nothing we normally would do would protect you against people in port service turning bad,” said Lt. Cmdr. Cate Mueller, a Navy spokeswoman at the Pentagon. “There’s just so far you can go.”

Navy officials said protecting a ship in a busy harbor from terrorist attack is very tough--perhaps tougher than protecting an installation of ground troops, which can be shielded with barbed wire, bunkers and setback space.

A destroyer is large and slow-moving and cannot be easily maneuvered through the dozens of small ships and boats that may be plying the harbor around it, officials said. Some suggested that it is surprising there have not been more attacks on Navy vessels in port.

The Cole had been in the region since June as part of an aircraft carrier battle group. It was headed for the Persian Gulf to help efforts to prevent Iraqi oil smuggling.

U.S. diplomats in Yemen said that despite days of political demonstrations over the two weeks of clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East, there had been no warning of potential terrorist attacks.

The State Department issued a worldwide alert, citing its extreme concern about the possibility of violence against U.S. citizens and interests. Amid a new outbreak of violence in Israel, Americans were urged to defer travel to that country, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Travelers already in those areas were told to stay at home or a safe location. Americans were warned not to go to Yemen.

Americans in Yemen were alerted and told to exercise caution. The country is already listed on the State Department’s travel advisory because of a rash of kidnappings of foreigners by rural tribes.

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo put out strong warnings to Americans in the region to maintain a “high level of vigilance,” reduce their profiles and vary their daily routines to avoid becoming targets.

Yemen’s president, Lt. Gen. Ali Abdullah Saleh, talked with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, pledged his cooperation in the investigation and visited some of the injured. He insisted in a CNN interview that his country does not harbor “terrorist elements” and said, “I don’t think it’s a terrorist attack.”

Said a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Sana: “We have not received any unusual threats. We have had demonstrations, but they have been orderly and have not targeted the embassy. Basically, there have been people standing around and listening to speeches.”

Nadia Saqqaf, acting editor of the English-language Yemen Times, said panic ensued after the ship explosion.

“Demonstrations are going on all over the place,” she said. “People are preaching about [the Israeli actions] in the mosques. The door for jihad [holy war] is open.”

Anti-American sentiment also was running high, and most of those doing the protesting in Yemen are Palestinians, she said.

In Cairo, which has seen increasingly militant street protests in the last few days, Egyptian analysts said they would not be surprised if Americans are targeted.

“The escalation is expected. There is no doubt American interests are in danger,” said Said Sanbol, columnist at the semiofficial Al Akhbar daily newspaper in Cairo.

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Richter reported from Washington and Kelly from Cairo. Times special correspondent Aline Kazandjian in Cairo contributed to this report.

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Deadly Blast

The Arleigh Burke Class destroyer Cole was refueling in Yemen when it was apparently rammed by a small boat carrying a bomb in the port of Aden. At least six crew members were killed, 35 injured and 12 are missing and feared dead.

How It Happened

1. The Cole arrives at Aden for four-hour refueling stop.

2. A small boat of unknown nationality helps moor the destroyer at a fueling station.

3. At 12:15 p.m. local time (2:15 a.m. PDT), boat delivers a line to one of the refueling buoys.

4. The small boat turns and travels directly toward ship, ramming and exploding into its left side, leaving a 20-by-40-foot hole into the engine room.

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The Cole had come from the Mediterranean Sea, passed through the Suez Canal on Monday and traveled down the Red Sea before arriving at Aden. It was on its way to the Persian Gulf to provide support in the U.N. embargo against Iraq.

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The Destroyer Cole

Length: 505 ft.

Max. width: 66 ft.

Weight: 9,100 tons

Speed: 31 knots (36 mph)

Home port: Norfolk, Va.

Year commissioned: 1996

Crew: About 25 officers, more than 300 sailors

Schedule: Was in middle of a six-month deployment; left Norfolk June 21 and was due back Dec. 21.

Named for: Marine Sgt. Darrell Cole, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.

Fleet: U.S. 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, along with 1,000 U.S. military personnel.

Construction: All steel.

Weapons

The sophisticated Aegis weapons system continuously scans all directions to track hundreds of aircraft and missiles.