A terrorist believed to be a mastermind in the planning of the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 was killed by an airstrike in Yemen.
According to Captain Bill Urban, a Central Command spokesperson, the terror commander identified as Jamal Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al Badawi was thought to be among the victims of an air raid carried out by U.S. forces in Yemen’s Ma’rib Governorate on Tuesday 1st January 2019.
“U.S. forces conducted a precision strike January 1 in the Ma’rib Governorate, Yemen, targeting Jamal Al Badawi, a legacy Al-Qaeda operative in Yemen involved in the USS Cole bombing,” Urban was quoted as saying. “US forces are still assessing the results of the strike following a deliberate process to confirm his death.”
Badawi had long been on the FBI’s most wanted terrorists’ radar and had been a high-profile figure in Al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization behind the 9/11 attacks.
The State Department’s Rewards for Justice had once offered $5 million for information that could lead intelligence agencies to him.
He was reportedly among those who orchestrated the attack on USS Cole in Yemen on October 12, 2000, which killed 17 people and wounded a further 39.
