WASHINGTON — In a sinister slip through Navy security, suicide bombers in a small boat tore a gaping hole in a U.S. warship Thursday at a refueling stop in a Yemeni harbor on the Arabian Peninsula, U.S. officials say. The blast killed six members of the crew, injured 35 and left 11 missing. The crippled ship was tilting slightly in the harbor at Aden, Yemen, but the Navy said it was not in danger of sinking.
No one has claimed responsibility, Defense Secretary William Cohen told a Pentagon news conference.
President Clinton said the attack on the USS Cole, one of the world's most advanced warships, appeared to be an act of terrorism, the worst against the U.S. military since the bombing of an Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996 that killed 19 troops.
"We will find out who was responsible and hold them accountable," Clinton pledged.
He dispatched to Yemen investigative teams from the FBI, the State Department and the Pentagon. Clinton also ordered a heightened state of alert for all U.S. military installations around the world.
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After the attack, ambulances rushed to the port, and Americans working with Yemeni authorities cordoned off the area. The ship was listing but still afloat. Yemeni police sources said without elaboration that a number of people had been detained for questioning; it was not clear whether any were suspects.
The State Department issued a worldwide alert, saying it was extremely concerned about the possibility of violence against U.S. citizens and interests. Americans were urged to maintain "a high level of vigilance."
In a parallel travel warning, Americans were advised to defer all travel to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and those already there were told to stay at home or get to a safe location. Americans were warned not to go to Yemen.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh talked with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, pledged his cooperation in the investigation and visited some of the injured who were hospitalized locally. He insisted in a CNN interview that his country did not harbor "terrorist elements" and said, "I don't think it's a terrorist attack."
The Cole is a $1 billion guided missile destroyer home-ported at Norfolk, Va. It had sailed through the Red Sea and was en route to the Persian Gulf where it was to perform maritime intercept operations in support of the U.N. embargo against Iraq. The ship has a crew of about 350 people.
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