America Still Doesn’t Know What to Do With Terrorism Suspects
Some pre-9/11 plotters have not yet been brought to justice, even as a new generation of suspects is taking their place.
Almost 20 years have passed since suicide bombers blew a hole into the USS Cole, killing 17 sailors in a brazen prelude to the September 11th attacks that came a year later. Yet the U.S. still hasn’t fully settled the question of how to bring terrorism suspects to justice—and the diverging fates of two of the Cole plotters show how the confused approach haunts U.S. national security.
In the , Jamal al-Badawi, who helped coordinate logistics for the attack, was caught, tried, and incarcerated in Yemen, where he escaped prison twice and was finally set free before being killed in an American air strike this month. In the , Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the actual alleged mastermind of the attack, remains in legal
