A U.S. citizen with a $5 million bounty on his head for alleged links to an al Qaeda cell in New York state was among 23 prisoners who escaped from a Yemeni prison last week, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. "Jaber Elbaneh was a member of the cell and was among those who escaped from prison in Yemen," the official told Reuters. In May 2003, U.S. prosecutors charged Elbaneh with conspiring with six other Yemeni-American men who admitted they were trained in April 2001 at a camp in Afghanistan run by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. The cell was dubbed "Lackawanna 6" after their home town in New York. Elbaneh, 39, was charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization and conspiring to provide such support specifically to al Qaeda.
"There were seven U.S. citizens of Yemeni origin who grew up in Lackawanna, New York, and Elbaneh was one of them. All seven of them reportedly traveled an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in the summer of 2001," the official said.
"Elbaneh never returned to the U.S. after his training in Afghanistan. The other six of the Lackawanna cell were arrested when they returned to the U.S."
Elbaneh was arrested in late 2003 in his native Yemen, which is bin Laden's ancestral homeland.
His current whereabouts are unknown, but Yemen has launched an intensive manhunt for the group of 23 prisoners, including at least 13 convicted al Qaeda members, who tunneled their way out of a jail in the capital Sanaa. Interpol issued a global security alert on Sunday, calling the escaped militants a "danger to all countries." The jailbreak was a major embarrassment for Yemen, which has cracked down on militants and has sought to position itself as an ally of the United States.
The escapees included Jamal Badawi, mastermind of the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden in October 2000, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. Another is Fawaz al-Rabe'ie, who led the group convicted of bombing the French oil tanker Limburg off the Yemeni coast in 2002, killing a crewman.
According to the U.S. government's Rewards For Justice Web site, which details the rewards for helping track down wanted militants, Elbaneh is about 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 meters) tall, weighs 200 pounds (90 kg) and has brown hair and eyes. He is pictured with a mustache and beard.