US brings home bodies of sailors

WASHINGTON - Flags flew at half-mast around the United States yesterday as the bodies of five of the 17 sailors killed in an attack on the USS Cole arrived home on a military transport plane.

The C-17 plane, travelling from a US military base in Ramstein, Germany, landed in Dover, Delaware, and parked at a terminal where the press was not permitted.

During a short, private ceremony, high-ranking Navy officers and two chaplains saluted the five victims.

An official memorial service for all 17 sailors will be held on Thursday in Norfolk, Virginia, the home port of the USS Cole and headquarters of the Atlantic fleet.

The White House said President Bill Clinton would attend the service with Defence Secretary William Cohen.

The sailors were killed when a small boat exploded alongside the US destroyer at the Yemeni port of Aden on Friday. Not all the bodies have been recovered.

The sailors, ranging in age from 19 to 35, were mostly new to the Navy and fresh out of school.

Two of the victims, aged 19 and 22, were the first female sailors killed since women were allowed to serve on battleships six years ago.

"There's been an overwhelming outpouring of support from the local community," said Navy spokeswoman Lieutenant Brenda Malone in Norfolk.

In his weekly radio address yesterday, Clinton expressed condolences to the 17 sailors' families and vowed to "do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to find those who killed our sailors, and hold them accountable."

"Our sailors aboard the USS Cole were simply doing their duty, but a dangerous duty: standing guard for peace," said Clinton. "To our sailors' families, let me say we hold you in our prayers.

"We will never know your loved ones as you did, or remember them as you will, but we join you in your grief.

"No matter how difficult that task may be, no matter how terrible the images of this week's violence, the effort must continue with America's strong support."

Thirty-nine of the sailors wounded in the attack arrived at the weekend at the Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt in Germany, a midway station on the journey home.

Seven of them, too badly wounded to walk, were carried from the plane on stretchers.

Many of the walking wounded were still wearing shorts and T-shirts, and wrapped themselves in blankets against the chilly fog as they descended from the C9 medical transport that had carried them on the 15-hour trip from Aden.

The seven stretcher cases were loaded gingerly on to a bus for the 1 1/2-hour drive to the US military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre, for evaluation and treatment.

"These guy were just exhausted," said Captain Karin Petersen, one of five flight nurses from the medical air evacuation wing based at Ramstein.

"They just wanted us to take them home."

A US Air Force spokesman said that more than 30 of the sailors could fly home as soon as today.

"We have 32 to 34 of the patients whom we have finished our exams on and finished our initial work, and we've decided that they're ready to go back to their homes and their families," said Air Force Colonel James Rundell.

He said that in addition to the more lightly injured group, surgeons had operated on six sailors who would remain in hospital for days or weeks, depending on the severity of their injuries.

"Some may require a couple of operations, some rehabilitation," he said.

"It might be one or two weeks before they go back to the United States."

In a letter to Congress, Clinton said extra US forces might be deployed to Aden to boost on-site security for the USS Cole.

Clinton noted that 100 military personnel had been sent to the Cole immediately after the attack. He did not specify the number of new personnel to be deployed.

Already, US investigators in Yemen have pledged to leave no stone unturned in the hunt for exactly who and what caused the blast.

The New York Times, citing senior military officials, reported that the US received a vague warning last month of a possible attack on a US warship.

The information - received from "an intelligence source in the Arab world," according to the report - was vague and did not specify in what country the attack might take place.

Lieutenant-Commander Daren Pelkie, spokesman for the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet, said divers had so far not found any of the 10 sailors missing in the blast, which ripped a 9m by 12m hole in the side of the destroyer.

"Investigators from the FBI are in Yemen and will start on-site investigation on the ship to collect evidence, like on a crime scene."

He said divers would continue the search for the missing.

Navy officials say a small boat helping to moor the Cole at the southern Yemeni port in Aden had been laden with explosives in advance and blew up alongside the ship, one of the world's most sophisticated guided missile destroyers.

Witnesses described the two men on board the boat standing to attention just before it exploded.

Two little-known Muslim groups have claimed responsibility for the attack and US officials said a Yemen-based guerrilla group had said it was behind the bombing.

Certain to be under investigation is Yemen's Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, the only well-known guerrilla group in the poor Arab country.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh assured Clinton that Yemen would cooperate fully with the US investigation and said both countries must avoid "wrong analysis" of the cause of the explosion.

Saleh has maintained that preliminary information indicated it was not deliberate.

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