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Escapee's no jailbreak novice

Al-Qaida bomber's escape from a Yemeni prison was not his first and authorities say he may have had help

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT

February 7, 2006

U.S. Navy Guided Missile Destroyer USS Cole is shown in this undated file photo. The Defence Department said the ship was attacked by a terrorist suicide mission during the early morning hours of Oct. 12. Reports indicate that the explosion caused a 20-by-40-foot gash in the port side of the ship. The explosives are believed to have been delivered using a small Zodiac-type boat. (AP/U.S. Navy)

BEIRUT, Lebanon - He's flown the coop once before.

Jamal Badawi, an al-Qaida operative who masterminded the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, was among 23 convicts who escaped last week from a Yemeni prison through a tunnel - and into the women's section of a nearby mosque. But Badawi also had fled from a Yemeni jail in April 2003. He was re-captured 11 months later and sent back to prison.

Badawi's previous escape raised new questions about whether he had help from Yemeni officials in his latest breakout. The inmates - including at least 13 al-Qaida members - fled through a 460-foot-long tunnel "dug by the prisoners and co-conspirators outside," according to a security alert issued Sunday by Interpol. The prisoners had been detained at the headquarters of Yemen's military intelligence service in the capital, Sanaa.

"This man has escaped twice, and that means he has a strong network of supporters outside prison," said an Arab security official who monitors Islamic militants, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "It could also mean that he has received assistance from within the security agencies."

In 2003, Badawi and nine other al-Qaida members fled from a prison, which was also controlled by military intelligence, in the port city of Aden. The men fled through a hole in a bathroom wall. At the time, reports in the Arab press said the prisoners had drilled the hole themselves, but that was never confirmed by Yemeni officials.

After an intensive manhunt, Badawi, 36, was the last of the prisoners to be recaptured in March 2004. He was caught in the mountains of southern Abyan province and was wounded during a firefight with security forces.

Yemeni security officials say the 460-foot tunnel through which Badawi and the other 22 prisoners escaped last week led to the women's section of a mosque. Yemeni newspapers quoted officials as saying that the convicts had several accomplices on the outside because digging of the tunnel appeared to have started from the mosque. The accomplices likely chose the women's prayer area of the mosque because it is less frequented than the male section, since many women pray at home.

Security officials discovered the escape on Friday, but they suspect the prisoners fled on Thursday night, according to Yemeni newspapers. Interpol took the unusual step of publicizing the prison break after Yemeni officials released few details about it. The global police agency said the escape posed "a clear and present danger to all countries."

Interpol's secretary general, Ronald Noble, urged Yemen to provide the names, photos and fingerprints of all the escaped prisoners so the agency can issue international wanted notices for them. "Their escape cannot be considered an internal problem for Yemen alone," Noble said in a statement.

In September 2004, Badawi was sentenced to death by a Yemeni court for his role in organizing the Cole attack, in which two suicide bombers blew up an explosives-laden boat alongside the destroyer as it refueled in the port of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000. The bombing killed 17 American sailors, and blew open a gaping hole in the Cole's hull. Last year, Badawi's death sentence was commuted to 15 years in prison by a Yemeni appeals court.

After his last prison escape in 2003, Badawi was indicted in federal court in New York for the Cole bombing.

Yemen has long been a haven for militants. It is Osama bin Laden's ancestral home, where his father was born before moving to Saudi Arabia. That gave bin Laden important ties to a largely tribal country. Bin Laden also cultivated support through the recruitment of thousands of Yemenis to fight Soviet troops occupying Afghanistan in the 1980s.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Yemen joined the Bush administration's war on terror and allowed U.S. forces to enter the country and train its military. In November 2002, a CIA Predator drone fired a missile at a car carrying several al-Qaida members, killing bin Laden's top operative in Yemen.