An al-Qaida operative sentenced to death for plotting the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 sailors in 2000 was among a group of convicts who escaped from a Yemen prison last week, Interpol said Sunday in issuing a global security alert.
The Yemeni government made no official comment Sunday.
Yemeni officials said Jamal al-Badawi _ a man convicted of plotting, preparing and helping carry out the Cole bombing _ was among the fugitives, Interpol said. Al-Badawi was among those sentenced to death in September 2004 for plotting the attack, in which two suicide bombers blew up an explosives-laden boat next to the destroyer as it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000.
A Yemeni security official announced the escape of convicted al-Qaida members Friday but did not provide any details or names. The official said only that the escapees had all had been sentenced last year on terrorism-related charges.
Interpol said in a statement that at least 13 of the 23 escapees were convicted al-Qaida fighters.
The convicts escaped via a 140-yard-long tunnel “dug by the prisoners and coconspirators outside,” Interpol said. The Yemeni official said the prison was at the central headquarters of the country’s military intelligence services in a building in the center of the capital.
Another of the 23 escapees was identified as Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeiee, considered by Interpol to be one of those responsible for a 2002 attack on the French tanker Limburg off Yemen’s coast. That attack killed a Bulgarian crew member and spilled 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden.
Al-Rabeiee also was convicted for an attack on a helicopter carrying Hunt Oil Co. employees a month later and the detonation of explosions at a civil aviation authority building.
“We are closely monitoring the situation at this time and we will work with our domestic and international partners to actively pursue these dangerous terrorists,” FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said in Washington.
Interpol’s urgent global security alert, known as an “orange notice,” was issued “because the escape and unknown whereabouts of al-Qaida terrorists constituted a clear and present danger to all countries,” the statement said.
The whole tone of this is very disturbing. They have been missing for a week and it gets no press? The FBI seems laxidazical,  almost as if they will give it their best?!?!
This yet another reason why all of these terrorists just need to be killed. The Liberals want lawyers and U.S. Courts for them, jail, etc. If there are any courts, it should be military courts, with sentences carried out in 72 hrs.
This nonsense has gone too far already.
Robert- I agree with you! How many escapes have we had from Gitmo?