ADEN, Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh admitted Monday the blast that ripped through a U.S. Navy warship in a Yemeni port killing 17 sailors was a "premeditated criminal act", the official Saba news agency reported.
Saleh told the commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, General Tommy Franks, that "according to preliminary indications in our possession, it was a premeditated criminal act", Saba said.
Franks, the top U.S. military official in the region, arrived Monday in the southern port of Aden on a morale-boosting trip as hundreds of U.S. agents continued a probe into the cause of the October 12 explosion aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole.
Saleh gave Franks "the results and important evidence which the security services of Yemen have reached about the circumstances of the deplorable incident." The president condemned "this regrettable criminal act destined to damage good and friendly relations linking Yemen and the United States." Yemen would pursue inquiries and hunt down those responsible, he pledged.
Meanwhile, 16 Yemeni port workers remained in custody helping with investigations, relatives told AFP. Nearly 30 others taken in for questioning have since been released.
Franks, commander-in-chief for and Horn of Africa, met Saleh to "review the October 12 attack on the USS Cole as well as areas of continuing cooperation".
"General Franks expressed his appreciation to President Saleh and the Yemeni people for their support and efforts on behalf of the embarked sailors," a U.S. Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) statement said.