Saturday Morning News

USS Cole Attacked: Peter Bergen Discusses Who Might Be Responsible for the Attack on the Cole

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MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we turn pour attention back now to the suspected terrorist attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. To help put things in perspective, we go to CNN's terrorism analyst, Peter Bergen.

Peter, good to have you with us.

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Hi, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, well first of all I was a bit surprised when I read this morning that officials in Yemen are suggesting this might have been some sort of accident that was internal to the ship. To what extent might that hamper the investigation if the Yemeni authorities are suggesting it wasn't terrorism?

BERGEN: Well, I mean, I talked to a U.S. counter terrorism official last night, and he said, look, we know it was an explosion. We want the investigators on the ground to tell us it was an explosion. He actually said the Yemeni government has been cooperating rather well in the investigation. He said that Yemen in the last few years has been more cooperative in terms of terrorism. It's not quite like the United Kingdom's cooperation with the United States, but it's certainly not like, sort of, Iran. So I'm sort of puzzled by that statement, and perhaps there are, you know, different elements of the Yemeni government doing different things.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about sort of the usual suspects here, if you will. Osama bin Laden comes up quite a bit because of, I guess you'd call it, a lot of circumstantial evidence, geographic evidence, if nothing else, the fact that this is an area his cells are known to be active in.

Aside from the bin Laden group, what are the other usual suspects here?

BERGEN: Well, we've had three claims of responsibility here, one by the Islamic Army of Aden, which is taken pretty seriously. This group kidnapped 16 Western tourists a couple of years ago, four of whom died in a botched rescue attempt by the Yemeni army.

Other than that, I think that bin Laden Osama bin Laden is really the first big -- the organization with the capability motive organization and also the historical links in the area. Bin Laden's father is from Yemen, bin Laden has supported movements in Yemen for quite some time.

Obviously, you know, we may never know exactly who did this bombing, because unless you can catch people rather rapidly in the investigation, as happened in the World Trade Center bombing, as happened with the U.S. embassies, where people involved in the bombing were apprehended within a few days, it can be very difficult. If you look at the bombings in Riyadh and Duran (ph), at the U.S. military barracks in 1995 and 1996, it's still not very clear who did that.

O'BRIEN: Well, and -- so -- really, what investigators will have to rely on is some sort of break in this particular one, some sort of forensic evidence, which it appears there's not too much of, or perhaps somebody who might give them some information. Is that likely, given what you know about the bin Laden organization, assuming for a moment that bin Laden is responsible?

BERGEN: Well, even if it isn't necessarily bin Laden and perhaps it's a group that sort of looks to him as a leader or somebody who looks at him for inspiration, claims of responsibility by these people no longer happen.

When these events happen, there are always claims of responsibility. The counter terrorism official I mentioned earlier said, these claims of responsibility. all they require is a pay phone. And most are discounted as being bogus.

So, you know, it's difficult to tell with these claims of responsibility. The only one that's being taken really seriously is, as I mentioned, this Islamic Army of Aden.

O'BRIEN: CNN's terrorism analyst is Peter Bergen. Thanks very much for being with us this morning on CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

BERGEN: Thank you, Miles.

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