Al-Qaida terror suspect Waleed Mohammed Bin Attash has confessed to planning the bombing of the USS Cole and says he was involved in the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa.
According to a transcript of a March 12 military hearing in Guantanomo Bay, Attash said he participated in the purchase of the explosives used in the USS Cole attack. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed in the attack in Yemen.
Attash told the military panel that he put together the plan for the attack a year and a half before the bombing. He said he was with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden when the USS Cole was bombed on October 12, 2000.
Attash also said he was the link between al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy for the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
He said he met with the man who carried out the East African bombings hours before the attacks. The bombings killed more than 200 people.
Last week, the Pentagon released transcripts of a Guantanamo hearing in which terrorism suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claimed responsibility for the September 11th, 2001, attacks, the beheading of a U.S. journalist and several other terrorist plots.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
