WASHINGTON - U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are on the highest state of alert following new indications of terrorist threats in those Persian Gulf countries, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon cited ''credible threat information'' but declined to be more specific.
U.S. officials also revealed that since the bombing of the USS Cole on Oct. 12 in Yemen, no American warships have used the Suez Canal - the fastest, and normal, route from the eastern United States to the Gulf.
The crippled Cole, with most of its crew still aboard in the Gulf of Aden, will take the long way home to the United States - around the Cape of Good Hope on Africa's southern tip - to avoid the Suez Canal, said defense officials who discussed the matter Tuesday on condition of anonymity.
The defense officials said the Navy has been avoiding the Suez because of security concerns in light of escalating terrorist threats in the region. Bacon, however, denied there had been a decision to stop using the Suez.
In Yemen, sources close to the government's investigation into the Cole bombing said the probe is focusing on four men believed to be the main plotters and is exploring possible links to Muslim militants in Yemen.
The State Department's top anti-terrorism official, Michael A. Sheehan, declined Tuesday to divulge what investigators into the Cole attack may have found so far, saying, ''It's not clear what happened.'' But, he added, ''My guess is that it (the attack) was not state-sponsored.''
Bacon said it likely will be several more days before the Cole begins its journey home. The 505-foot destroyer was in the process of being secured atop the main deck of the Blue Marlin, a Norwegian-owned heavy-lift ship. To accomplish that, the Blue Marlin submerged its huge deck and positioned the Cole on top before starting to fasten it in place.
The Navy originally had estimated this maneuver would take about 24 hours, but Bacon said extra time will be taken to test the stability of the destroyer on the Blue Marlin's deck. ''They just want to be very careful,'' Bacon said.
At a Pentagon briefing, Bacon displayed U.S. Navy photographs of the operation, but none showed the Cole raised out of the water, where the full dimensions of the bomb crater in its hull could be seen, and Bacon said such photos might not be made public.
At Arlington National Cemetery, one of the last of the slain sailors brought home from the Cole was buried Tuesday. Hull Maintenance Technician 3rd Class Kenneth E. Clodfelter, 21, of Mechanicsville, Va., was among the 17 victims.
''Kenneth won't be forgotten, the other 16 won't be forgotten, the Cole won't be forgotten,'' Clodfelter's father, John, said after the funeral.
Bacon said the only U.S. ship that had been scheduled to transit the Suez Canal since the Cole did so on Oct. 9 was the destroyer USS Donald Cook, which instead will accompany the Cole on its voyage home. He said it would be a matter of weeks before any other ships are scheduled to use the 101-mile canal that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, but he denied that reflected a change in plans.
In the meantime, U.S. officials are consulting with the Egyptian government - which operates the Suez Canal - on security arrangements, Bacon said.
Although the Persian Gulf region is generally considered more dangerous than many other parts of the world, concerns have escalated since the Cole bombing, which American officials believe was the work of terrorists, possibly with links to suspected terrorism mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Last week the Pentagon disclosed that American forces in Bahrain and Qatar - tiny Gulf states with friendly U.S. ties - were placed on the highest state of alert, known as ''threat condition delta.'' This was in response to terrorist threats of unknown credibility against specific targets - including an airfield in Bahrain used by American aircraft.
Bacon said the roughly 5,000 U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia and 5,000 in Kuwait were placed on ''threat condition delta'' on Monday in response to credible threats against unspecified targets in those countries.
Along with a Navy carrier battle group in the Gulf, the troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait form the bulk of the U.S. effort to contain Iraq's military. They include a U.S. Air Force contingent at Prince Sultan Air Base in central Saudi Arabia that helps patrol the ''no fly'' zone over southern Iraq. The American forces in Kuwait are mainly Army units at Camp Doha and include a Patriot air defense missile unit.
Placing the troops on ''threat condition delta'' does not interfere with their normal operations but further restricts movements off the base and requires more onerous security checks of people entering the base. Security precautions in Saudi Arabia were increased in 1996 after a terrorist bomb struck the Khobar Towers housing complex near Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. Air Force members and injuring dozens.
Meantime, Sheehan, coordinator of the State Department's counterterrorism office, urged Yemen to give U.S. investigators more access to witnesses, suspects and evidence in the Cole bombing investigation.
While Yemen had the authority and responsibility to conduct the investigation, ''we would like to be privy'' to more of it, he said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, ''We are working out the modalities of this kind of cooperation and we think we are making progress.''
ABC News reported Tuesday that U.S. officials suspect Yemen authorities erased critical parts of a videotape taken by a harbor surveillance camera the day the Cole was hit.
Tracey Silberling, a spokeswoman for the FBI, which is leading the investigation, said she did not know about the tape and could not comment on the report.
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On the Net:
The USS Cole: http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/news/news-stories/cole.html
State Department on Yemen: http://www.state.gov/www/regions/nea/country/cp-yemen.html
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