Remember the USS Cole

Nearly one year before the attacks of 9/11, the U.S. Navy ship Cole, located off the coast of Yemen, was attacked by suicide bombers. The attack was later attributed to a cell within the Al Qaeda network; it had been supervised by Osama Bin Laden. The Cole bombing alerted Americans of the reality of terrorism, though, even when the connection to Al Qaeda was established, the threat represented by the Al Qaeda network remained generally underestimated. On Thursday, October 12, 2000, while refueling at a port in Aden, Yemen, the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole was attacked by a two suicide bombers navigating a small motorboat full of explosives. The explosion occurred at 11:18 a.m. Bahrain time, killing 17 crew members and wounding 40 others.