| Say it ain't so, Joe! |
Hollywood loves to remake classic movies, and sooner or later it's sure to get around to "The Great Escape," the 1963 thriller based on a real tunnel breakout from a Nazi prison camp during World War II. But this time Al Qaeda's propaganda machine may get the jump on Tinseltown. Earlier this month, in an astonishing tale of life imitating art—albeit with good guys and bad reversing roles—a group of 23 suspected terrorists dug their way to freedom from a basement compound beneath the Political Security Office (PSO), Yemen's main intelligence service, in the capital of Sana. Leading them out—in the starring role, as it were—was one Jamal al-Badawi, the mastermind of the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors. Another escapee was an American Muslim, Jaber Elbaneh, who was once part of an alleged cell in Buffalo, N.Y. None has been seen since.Not all the details of the latest great escape are yet clear. But it is highly unlikely it could have succeeded without help from members of the Yemeni government, which has been an ally in the war on terror. Last Friday a U.S. Embassy cable sent from Sana, described to NEWSWEEK by a U.S. official who did not want to be identified discussing classified material, noted "the lack of obvious security measures on the streets" and concluded, "One thing is certain: PSO insiders must have been involved."
As described by Yemeni and U.S. officials, the prisoners, left to themselves in a locked basement, spent two months digging the 143-foot tunnel. For tools, they used a broomstick with a sharpened spoon lashed to the end as a spade, along with another jerry-built device: three pots tied together as a U-shaped scoop. The plotters also had a soccer ball that they kicked around indoors, apparently to make enough noise to drown out the digging.