On October 12, 2000, author Jonathan Randal recalled “the BBC World Service radio account of the near-sinking of the USS Cole, a billion-dollar missile destroyer, in a terrorist attack during a refueling stopover in Aden, Yemen’s premiere port. Piloted by two kamikazes, a speeding fiberglass skiff loaded with high explosives, arranged in a shaped charge to maximize damage, blew an enormous hole in the destroyer’s side at the water line, killing nineteen sailors and requiring $250 million in repairs. …Despite the East African attacks twenty-six months earlier and Yemen’s well-established reputation for lawlessness and Islamist activism, the Cole‘s crew had failed to observe standing Navy regulations requiring marksmen be posted during the Aden stopovers.”
– Jonathan Randal, Osama, Pages 253-254