Government Web sites in Yemen yesterday were claiming that Jamal al-Badawi, accused of helping to plan the bombing in October 2000 of the USS Cole, was being detained by the interior ministry. If true, it is an improvement; the Associated Press reported that al-Badawi had been “set free after he turned himself in earlier this month and pledged loyalty to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.” The wire said witnesses at the time told it that “al-Badawi was receiving well wishers at his home in the al-Buraika district in Aden.” That had prompted the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, on Friday to call the reports that Mr. al-Badawi was free “disturbing.”

The wires sent us to our files on the Cole bombing, in which 17 American sailors were killed in an attack that has been interpreted as a precursor to September 11, 2001. One thing that popped out was a Justice Department press release from May 15, 2003, headlined, “Al Qaeda Associates Charged in Attack on USS Cole.” The indictment charged Mr. al-Badawi and Fahd al-Quso with, as the press release put it, “50 counts of various terrorism offenses, including murder of U.S. nationals and murder of U.S. military personnel. Badawi was also charged with attempting with co-conspirators to attack the U.S. naval vessel the USS The Sullivans in January 2000, while that vessel was refueling in the port of Aden.”