A federal judge in Virginia last Wednesday found the government of Sudan liable for the attack on the Cole in a lawsuit in which the sailors' relatives argued that al-Qaida could not have succeeded without the African nation providing a safe haven for bin Laden and financial support. No damage amount has yet been awarded.

Lorrie Triplett of Suffolk, Va., whose husband, Andrew, died in the Cole attack, said the confession is helpful to the families of the Cole sailors because it bolsters the case they made in court.

"In some ways, it could have been coerced, you know, they just want to just blame anybody, but it's the tip of the iceberg. It is more than just him," she said.

"The thing is, we want accountability from all levels, not just the foreign nationals who pulled off the attack, who masterminded the attack, but those who let it happen within our government as well," said Jamal Gunn, 26, of Virginia Beach, Va., whose brother, Cherone Gunn, was killed aboard the Cole. Gunn said the Cole should not have stopped in Yemen because that country was on a terrorist watch list.

In the late 1990s, bin Attash allegedly alternated between serving as bin Laden's bodyguard and fighting Afghanistan's Northern Alliance force. He lost his right leg in a battlefield accident in 1997, US intelligence says.

Bin Attash helped choose the Sept. 11 hijackers and made two flights on US airlines to assess in-flight security procedures, authorities allege. Bin Laden wanted bin Attash to be one of the hijackers on Sept. 11, but that plan was foiled when bin Attash was arrested in Yemen in April of that year and briefly imprisoned after attempting to get a US visa.

Intelligence officials say that in the months before his 2003 arrest, he and others were close to executing a plot to simultaneously attack the US consulate in Karachi, westerners at the airport and westerners living in the area.

The US military prison at Guantanamo Bay opened five years ago, mostly with men captured from the war in Afghanistan. Roughly 385 prisoners are still held there and about 80 detainees are designated for release or transfer.

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