USS Cole

2000

Aden, the skiff, al-Qaeda Location: Port of Aden, Yemen · Coordinates: 12.79°N 44.98°E · Casualties: 17 · Survivors: ~280 · Depth: survived · repaired · Cause: terrorist attack · shaped charge — Attacked at 11:18 on 12 October 2000 while refuelling in the port of Aden, Yemen. A small fiberglass boat carrying two al-Qaeda operatives and approximately 500 pounds of shaped explosive detonated alongside her port side. A 12-by-18-metre hole opened below the waterline in the engineering spaces. · Fate: repaired · returned to service · Type: destroyer · Arleigh Burke class · Tonnage: 8,400 tons · Crew: 293 · Flag: United States · Launched: 1995 American Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, refuelling in the port of Aden, Yemen. At 11:18 on 12 October 2000, a small fiberglass skiff carrying two al-Qaeda suicide bombers and 500 pounds of shaped explosive detonated alongside her port side. 17 dead, 37 wounded, a 12-by-18-metre hole below the waterline. One of the last warnings before 11 September; Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility two months later in a recruiting video. She was towed home, repaired, and returned to service in 2002. The Vessel USS Cole (DDG-67) was an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer of the United States Navy, commissioned at the Ingalls Shipbuilding yard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on 8 June 1996. She was 154 metres long, 8,900 tons full load, armed with a Mark 41 Vertical Launching System (with capacity for 96 missiles including Tomahawk cruise missiles, SM-2 anti-air missiles, and ASROC anti-submarine missiles), a single 5-inch gun, two Phalanx CIWS, and Harpoon anti-ship missiles. Her designed speed was 30 knots. The Arleigh Burke class was, at her commissioning, the most capable American destroyer design ever fielded. Her Aegis combat system could simultaneously track hundreds of air, surface, and subsurface targets; her SPY-1D phased-array radar provided 360-degree surveillance at ranges up to 350 kilometres; her VLS could launch missiles for anti-air, anti-surface, anti-submarine, and land-attack missions. She was designed to protect a carrier battle group or an amphibious task force against any combination of contemporary threats. She was named for Sergeant Darrell S. Cole, a United States Marine Corps machine-gunner who had received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions on Iwo Jima in February 1945. Her commanding officer from June 1999 was Commander Kirk Lippold, 40 years old, a career surface warfare officer. The Disaster At 11:18 on 12 October 2000 a 7-metre fibreglass boat approached USS Cole from the starboard side at slow speed. The boat was crewed by two al-Qaeda operatives, Hassan al-Khamiri and Ibrahim al-Thawar, who had been trained for the operation over several months at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. The boat carried approximately 450 kilograms of shaped C-4 explosive charge, configured to direct the explosion force perpendicular to the boat's short axis. The two operatives waved at Cole's crew as they approached. Cole's duty officer observed the approach but did not recognise the threat: boat traffic near American warships at Aden was routine, and the specific approach behaviour of al-Khamiri and al-Thawar did not violate the ship's rules of engagement. The boat came alongside Cole's port side at approximately 11:17:45 and detonated at 11:18 on 12 October 2000. The shaped-charge explosion opened a hole in USS Cole's port side below the waterline, approximately 12 metres wide and 18 metres high. The hole opened into her auxiliary machinery spaces and crew mess areas at Frames 120-134. Seventeen members of the Cole's crew died instantly in the explosion or in the flooding that immediately followed. An additional 37 were wounded, some severely. Commander Lippold and his surviving crew fought to save the ship over the following 72 hours. Their damage-control effort, conducted under the most extreme conditions (the port-side breach was below the waterline and admitted water at a rate