Federal prosecutors are set to announce charges against two men believed responsible for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors, law enforcement officials said Wednesday. An indictment is expected to be unsealed in federal court Thursday in New York charging the men, who are believed to be among 10 suspects who escaped last month from a jail in Yemen. They remain at large. Federal law enforcement officials who confirmed the indictment on condition of anonymity would not name the men. But they were identified by ABC News as Fahd Mohammed Ahmed Al-Quso and Jamal al-Badawi. Both men were recently added to the FBI’s Web site under the “seeking information” heading because of their jail escape. They are characterized by the FBI as “armed and dangerous,” with few other details available except that al-Badawi was born in either 1960 or 1963 and was issued a Yemeni passport in 1997. The United States blames the al-Qaida terror network for the Oct. 12, 2000, attack on the Cole, a destroyer that was rammed by a dinghy packed with explosives during a refueling stop in the Yemeni port city of Aden. Al-Badawi allegedly bought the dinghy used in the attack, Yemeni officials have said. The Cole suspects escaped April 11 from a Yemeni jail through a hole in a bathroom wall in their detention cell. Authorities in Yemen believe the men traveled either to al-Qaida strongholds in the country’s northern provinces or to the Red Sea port of Al-Hudaydah, where some were from. Full Story
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