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| USS Cole suspect 'admits guilt' | USS Cole suspect 'admits guilt' |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| A suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole warship in Yemen has confessed to the attack, the Pentagon says. | A suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole warship in Yemen has confessed to the attack, the Pentagon says. |
| Walid Mohammad bin Attash is said to have made his confession in a hearing at Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. | |
| Seventeen sailors died and 37 were hurt when the Cole was rammed by suicide bombers in the port of Aden in 2000. | Seventeen sailors died and 37 were hurt when the Cole was rammed by suicide bombers in the port of Aden in 2000. |
| Mr Attash also said he helped plan the 1998 bomb attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 213, the Pentagon said. | |
| Partial transcripts of the alleged admission made during a closed-door hearing were released by the US Defense Department on Monday. | |
| The US hearings have been widely criticised by lawyers and human rights groups as sham tribunals, with no chance for the defendants to get a fair trial. | The US hearings have been widely criticised by lawyers and human rights groups as sham tribunals, with no chance for the defendants to get a fair trial. |
| Alleged mastermind | |
| The alleged al-Qaeda operative is reported to have said he bought the explosives and recruited members of the team that rammed an explosives-laden boat into the USS Cole while it was refuelling. | |
| "I put together the plan for the operation a year and a half prior to the operation," Mr Attash told a military panel, according to the transcripts. | |
| Speaking of the embassy bombing in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, Mr Attash said he was the link between Osama Bin Laden, his deputy and the cell chief in Nairobi. | |
| "I used to supply the cell with whatever documents they need from fake stamps to visas, whatever," he said in the transcripts. | |
| Mr Attash is one of 14 "high-profile" detainees transferred in September from secret CIA prisons abroad to Guantanamo Bay. | |
| The hearing was held to determine whether Mr Attash was an "enemy combatant", which could lead to a military trial. | |
| Any criminal charges that are brought could eventually lead to a military tribunal. |