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| Arabia |
| Binny coerced Yemeni official to spring Cole killer |
| 2004-07-23 |
| Osama bin Laden personally intervened with a Yemeni government official in 1999 to secure the release of one of his followers, a man who later assisted in both the Sept. 11 attacks and the bombing of the USS Cole, the Sept. 11 commission reported. The al-Qaida operative was Tawfiq bin Attash, also known as Khallad. He was arrested in early 1999 because he was driving the car of another militant who was wanted by the Yemeni government. But in 1999, Khallad's ties to al-Qaida apparently were not known, although he was working on the plot that would eventually lead to the bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen. The Sept. 11 report called Yemen's arrest of him a case of mistaken identity. In summer 1999, bin Laden himself -- by then a wanted man for the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa -- contacted a Yemeni government official to secure Khallad's release. Khallad's father, a Yemeni associate of bin Laden who was expelled from the country for his militant views, also contacted the Yemeni government. Bin Laden's tone was threatening when he spoke to a Yemeni official. He suggested he "would not confront the Yemenis if they did not confront him." The Yemeni is not identified in the Sept. 11 report. Khallad was freed. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |