“The first attempt [by al Qaeda] to sink an American warship [in the Gulf of Aden] came on January 3, 2000–the holiest day of Ramadan, ‘the night of power’ when Muhammad received the first verse of the Koran. The religious significance would hardly have escaped the bombers: dying on this day is said to be a sign of Allah’s grace. But no one was to die. The boat loaded with hundreds of pounds of explosives was launched from a beach off Little Aden and promptly sank.” The bombers “clearly had no idea how to distribute cargo aboard a boat. Their target, the destroyer U.S.S. The Sullivans, steamed away from Aden [Yemen], the crew unaware of how narrowly they had avoided catastrophe.”
– Peter Bergen, Holy War, Inc., Page 189