Robert Mueller announces during meeting with President Saleh in AdenUS legal attacheestablished at embassy [Archives:2003/639/Local News]

Mohammed Al-Qadhi

Robert Mueller, Director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI told President Ali Abdullah Saleh during their meeting in Aden last Monday that a legal attache office at the US embassy in Sana'a has been established. A press statement issued by the US embassy said that Mueller discussed with Saleh “counter-terrorism and legal cooperation.” He also briefed Saleh “on his talks with Saudi officials regarding the latest terrorist attacks in Riyadh that left more than thirty people dead.”
Other sources said they discussed also the efforts made by Yemen to hunt down for terrorists as well as the aid Yemeni security needs in this fight on terror. The US puts more importance on the role to be played by the Yemeni security mainly in the borders in the light of al-Riyadh terrorist attacks and how both Yemen and Saudi Arabia can tighten their security measures to hunt down al-Qaeda suspects who might move between the two countries. It is not known whether the two sides discussed the question of the al-Qaeda suspects who escaped from the jail last April.
The city, where discussions were held -Aden- is the scene of the October 2000 suicide attack on the U.S. warship USS Cole and lies on the shore where an attack on the French supertanker Limburg took place nearly two years later.
The meeting came a month after the US charged two fugitive Yemenis, described as long-time al Qaeda associates, with plotting the Cole bombing which killed 17 U.S. sailors.
Among the attendees of the meeting were the Yemeni Interior Minister, Dr. Rashad al-Alimi, PSO Chief, Ghalib al-Qamish and the US ambassador to Yemen, Edmund Hull.
Mueller was in Saudi Arabia Sunday to discuss joint investigations by local authorities and the FBI into the May 12 suicide bombings by suspected al Qaeda militants in Riyadh which killed 34 people, including nine Americans.
The official Saudi Press Agency said Mueller praised Saudi cooperation in the probe into the Riyadh attacks.
He is also expected to visit Morocco where suicide bombers killed 43 people in Casablanca on May 16.

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