Egyptian Link to Cole Bombing?

Oct. 26 -- A bomb threat last night at the hotel where FBI investigators are staying in Aden has led to heightened security, a Pentagon spokesman said today.

“We did receive a called-in threat and security measures were taken,” Kenneth Bacon said at a Pentagon press briefing today.

Already strict security measures were further tightened today. All civilian traffic coming within 500 yards of the hotel are now being turned away by the military.

The threat came as the FBI technical team collecting evidence from the Cole prepared to head home today. Other FBI investigators, who are trying to trace the culprits in the bombing, are remaining in Yemen.

The attack on the USS Cole on Oct. 12 as it sat in port in Aden, Yemen, apparently by two suicide bombers, killed 17 U.S. sailors and injured 39.

Possible Egyptian Connection

On Arabic satellite television channel MBC, President Ali Abdullah Saleh said eyewitnesses had identified one of the two suicide bombers as Egyptian.

Saleh also said several senior members of a Muslim militant group called Islamic Jihad have been detained in connection with the blast. There are several groups which go by the name Islamic Jihad, including one Egyptian and one Palestinian group, but Saleh didn’t specify which group was involved.

Saleh said the detainees included Yemenis, Egyptians, and Algerians, and described the group as composed of Arabs who fought Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

Terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden was prominently involved in the Afghan resistance and now lives in Afghanistan, but Saleh declined to say whether the attackers or detainees had any connection to bin Laden’s Al-Qaida group.

Top Brass Discusses Protection

This morning, in an unusual worldwide video conference, Defense Secretary William Cohen and Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed how to protect U.S. forces abroad with the commanders of all major regional commands. That includes the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. forces in the Middle East.