While the world was distracted by the fall of Iraq’s onetime president, Saddam Hussein, this month, 10 suspected terrorists mysteriously vanished from a high-security prison in Yemen. The authorities, in disarray, offered a series of confusing stories. First, they said the prisoners had smashed a window. When this seemed implausible, they said the escapers had dug a tunnel from a prison bathroom — a tunnel that the guards had somehow failed to notice. Although the prison is built on solid rock, the prisoners supposedly dug the tunnel with their bare hands. Two weeks later, the government still has not provided a convincing explanation of the prison escape in the southern port city of Aden. Nobody seems to believe the official version. Local journalists call it “nonsense.” Among the escapers are two top suspects in the USS Cole bombing, which killed 17 U.S. sailors in Aden on Oct. 12, 2000. The other eight fugitives are alleged members of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization. Full Story
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