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U.S. indicts suspects in attack on 'Cole'

WASHINGTON - Two suspected al-Qaida operatives who escaped from a Yemeni prison last month have been indicted in the United States on murder and terror charges in the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors, government officials said Thursday.

The men, Jamal Badawi and Fahd Quso, were indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on 50 terrorism-related counts, including murder of U.S. nationals and murder of U.S. military personnel. The men, who could face the death penalty if convicted, are at large after breaking out of prison in the Yemeni capital of Sana last month.

"Badawi and Quso are alleged to be long-time al-Qaida terrorist associates who were trained in the al-Qaida terrorist camps in Afghanistan in the 1990s," Attorney General John Ashcroft said. "They were schooled in Osama bin Laden's hate and vowed to attack and kill Americans wherever and whenever they could, especially American nationals on the Arabian peninsula."

The Cole was attacked while refueling in Aden harbor. Two suicide bombers rammed the warship in a small boat laden with explosives, setting off a blast that tore a 40-foot hole in its hull, killed 17 and injured more than 40.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The Lebanese army, helped by Syrian intelligence, has arrested nine Islamist militants in northern Lebanon who were plotting an attack on the U.S. Embassy, government and military officials said on Thursday.

The men, who were arrested over the last week, also were planning to take one or more government officials hostage as a bargaining chip in efforts to free 30 militants of a Sunni Muslim extremist movement arrested in a government crackdown two years ago, the officials said. That movement, Redemption and Dawn of Islam, adheres to the strict Wahhabi branch dominant in Saudi Arabia, said army Col. Elias Farhat.

Farhat said some members of the movement had trained at al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan, but there was no indication the nine arrested men belonged to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

ROMANIA CLAIMS THWARTED ATTACK: Romania's intelligence service said Thursday it thwarted terrorist attacks planned by Iraq against Western and Israeli interests in Romania.

The country's spy service said it established in the months before the war that Iraqi operatives were planning "to organize terrorist attacks on Israeli and Western targets." It did not detail the alleged targets.

AIRLINER ANTIMISSILE PROTOTYPES SOUGHT: High-tech companies will be asked to propose ways to protect commercial planes from shoulder-fired missiles, lawmakers said Thursday.

The Homeland Security Department also will ask two companies to build prototype devices, they said.