Yemen: U.S. Shares Blame for Cole Blast
S A N ’ A, Yemen, Dec. 4 -- The United States itself bears some responsibility for the attack on the USS Cole because it helped create the terrorists who now consider America their worst enemy,Yemen’s foreign minister said today.
Speaking in an interview with The Associated Press, Foreign Minister Abdulkader Bajammal also said Yemen wants to work closely with the United States to combat terrorism.
“The operation was not Yemeni, not pure Yemeni,” Bajammalsaid. “It is a network involving so many countries. Terrorism hasno nation.”
No one has yet been charged in the Oct. 12 bombing of the USSCole, which killed 17 sailors and wounded 39. Asked if anyindictments were forthcoming, Bajammal said he had no information,noting it was not his area of responsibility.
But Bajammal said that if any Yemenis are found to have beeninvolved, they may have simply been corrupt bureaucrats whoprovided logistical help in exchange for “a little baksheesh,” —or payoffs — not out of ideology.
“We are a victim of terrorism, not a source of terrorism,”Bajammal added.
‘A Historical Phenomenon’
The attack on the Cole followed anti-U.S. and anti-Israeliprotests in Yemen and across an Arab world enraged by violence inPalestinian areas. Nearly 300 people — mostly Palestinians — havebeen killed in Israeli-Palestinian clashes since September.
But the roots of anti-American terrorism are older and deeper,running back to the 1980s when one of the last-gasp Cold Warbattles was waged in the rugged mountains and valleys ofAfghanistan.
Bajammal said that because the investigation was continuing, hecould not comment on the possibility that Yemeni or other Arabveterans of the Afghan war were involved in the Cole attack.
But, he said, “Terrorism did not appear by accident. It is ahistorical phenomenon. Just as the Soviet Union created a man like[the international terrorist] Carlos, the other side created theAfghan Arabs. We have inherited the remnants of the Cold War.”
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