USS Cole bombing

The USS Cole bombing was a suicide attack by Al-Qaeda against USS Cole, a guided missile destroyer of the United States Navy, on 12 October 2000, while it was being refueled in Yemen's Aden harbor.

Seventeen U.S. Navy sailors were killed and thirty-seven injured in the deadliest attack against a United States naval vessel since the USS Stark incident in 1987.

Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack. A U.S. judge has held Sudan liable for the attack, while another has released over $13 million in Sudanese frozen assets to the relatives of those killed. The United States Navy reconsidered its rules of engagement in response to this attack. On 30 October 2020, Sudan and the United States signed a bilateral claims agreement to compensate families of the sailors who died in the bombing. The agreement entered into force in February 2021.

On the morning of Thursday, 12 October 2000, Cole, under the command of Commander Kirk Lippold, docked in Aden harbor for a routine fuel stop. Cole completed mooring at 9:30 and began refueling at 10:30. Around 11:18 local time (08:18 UTC), a small fiberglass boat carrying C4 explosives and two suicide bombers approached the port side of the destroyer and exploded, creating a 40-by-60-foot (12 by 18 m) gash in the ship's port side, according to the memorial plate to those who lost their lives. Former CIA intelligence officer Robert Finke said the blast appeared to be caused by C4 explosives molded into a shaped charge against the hull of the boat. More than 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of explosive were used. Much of the blast entered a mechanical space below the ship's galley, violently pushing up the deck, thereby killing crew members who were lining up for lunch. The crew fought flooding in the engineering spaces and had the damage under control after three days. Divers inspected the hull and determined that the keel had not been damaged.

The sailors injured in the explosion were taken to the United States Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near Ramstein, Germany, before being sent to the United States. The attack was the deadliest against a U.S. naval vessel since an Iraqi aircraft's attack on USS Stark on 17 May 1987. The asymmetric warfare attack was organized and directed by the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. In June 2001, an Al-Qaeda recruitment video featuring Osama bin Laden boasted about the attack and encouraged similar attacks.

Al-Qaeda had previously attempted a similar but less publicized attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer USS The Sullivans while in port at Aden on 3 January 2000, as a part of the 2000 millennium attack plots. The plan was to load a boat full of explosives and detonate them near The Sullivans. However, the boat was so overladen that it sank, forcing the attack to be abandoned.

Planning for the October attack was discussed at the Kuala Lumpur Al-Qaeda Summit from 5 to 8 January, shortly after the failed attempt. Along with other plotters, the summit was attended by future September 11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar, who then traveled to San Diego, California. On 10 June 2000, Mihdhar left San Diego to visit his wife in Yemen at a house also used as a communications hub for Al-Qaeda. After the bombing, Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul Karim al-Iryani reported that Mihdhar had been one of the key planners of the attack and had been in the country at the time of the attacks. He later returned to the United States to participate in the 9/11 hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77, which flew into the Pentagon, killing 184 people.

The first naval ship on the scene to assist the stricken Cole was HMS Marlborough, a Type 23 frigate of the Royal Navy, under the command of Captain Anthony Rix. She was on passage to the UK after a six-month deployment in the Persian Gulf. Marlborough had full medical and damage control teams on board, and when her offer of assistance was accepted she immediately diverted to Aden. Eleven of the most badly injured sailors were sent via medevac provided by the French Air Force to a French military hospital in Djibouti and underwent surgery before being sent to Germany.