On Thursday, October 12, 2000, while refueling at a port in Aden, Yemen, the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole was attacked by two suicide bombers navigating a small motorboat full of explosives. The explosion killed 17 crewmembers and wounded 39 others. The day of the bombing, U.S. President Bill Clinton said in a statement, “If, as it now appears, this was an act of terrorism, it was a despicable and cowardly act.” The attack represented the first major international terrorist attack on a U.S. facility since the 1998 bombings of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the deadliest against a U.S. Naval vessel since the USS Stark came under Iraqi attack in 1987.
On September 11, 2001 a horrific event took place that left a scar on the United States. Nineteen militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airliners and carried out suicide attacks against the World Trade Center buildings, the Pentagon and the last crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. More than two thousand people were killed in this act of terrorism including more than 400 police officers and firefighters. Osama bin Laden denied involvement in the attacks immediately after the attacks, but later confessed to the crimes in a statement issued in 2004. The attackers were Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations. Reportedly, the attacks were financed by