WASHINGTON — An al-Qaida operative who was allegedly involved in the attack on the USS Cole 18 years ago, in which 17 sailors were killed including two from the Coastal Bend, was the target of a U.S. airstrike in Yemen on New Year's Day, according to the Associated Press. Jamel Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al-Badawi was an al-Qaeda operative who the US believes helped orchestrate the October 12, 2000, attack on the Norfolk based USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors. “We know that the person that we’ve had in custody for years now since 2003 - al-Nashiri - he’s been held in Guantánamo Bay and he is the one we’ve been told is the mastermind behind the attack, but now they say there is another mastermind. RELATED: 17th anniversary of the USS Cole bombing that killed two Coastal Bend Sailors

Urban said U.S. forces are attempting to confirm his death. The administration official said that al-Badawi was struck while driving alone in a vehicle and that the US assessed there was not any collateral damage. Although the government hadn’t officially confirmed his death Friday afternoon, administration officials said Al-Badawi, an al-Qaueda operative who was on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, was alone in a vehicle in Yemen's Ma'rib Governorate during Tuesday's airstrike. Suicide bombers pulled up to the Cole in a small boat packed with explosives when it stopped for refueling in Adlen Yemen – in a foreshadowing of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. a year later. Besides the deaths, 39 sailors were wounded. Al-Badawi was arrested by Yemeni authorities in December of 2000 and held in connection with the Cole attack but he escaped from a prison in Yemen in April of 2003. The State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program had previously offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest.
The United States Central Command announces that a U.S. airstrike in Ma'rib Governorate, Yemen, has killed Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Al Badawi, who is believed to have masterminded the 2000 USS Cole bombing that killed 17 American sailors.