U.S. promises Yemen to end USS Cole probe

WASHINGTON Ñ The United States has pledged to end the investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.

Diplomatic sources said a team of FBI investigators has arrived in Sanaa for what is said to be the final stage of the investigation of the October bombing of the U.S. warship in the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed in the blast.

Sanaa and Washington have been at odds over the investigation. U.S. officials have attributed the bombing to Saudi billionaire fugitive Osama Bin Laden and have sought to interview Islamic fundamentalist leaders and a Yemeni general believed involved in the bombing.

But Yemen has refused to allow FBI investigators access to these suspects. Instead, Yemeni officials said Sanaa is convinced that a group of six suspects captured last year comprise the core of the USS Cole bombing. Many of the other suspects, they said, have fled to Afghanistan.

"I believe that the task of the American investigators is over and the case is on its way to court," Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said. "No Yemeni, whether politician, a member of an Islamic party or anyone else, has the slightest link with the attack on the USS Cole."

Saleh told the Doha-based Al Jazeera television that the United States continues to pressure Sanaa regarding the investigation. After the bombing, he said, Yemen stopped U.S. plans to send U.S. Marines with attack helicopters and naval vessels.

"We placed them [Marines] under supervision and a security guard and they bowed to all what the Yemeni authorities wanted," Saleh said. "I have previously said this is Yemen and not Nairobi or any other country and no force could play with it."