Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard has told an Arabic newspaper that Yemenites make up 95% of Al Qaeda; that many Al Qaeda terrorists are fighting in the ranks of the Iraqi resistance; and that Al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole to “raise the morale of Muslims.”

The interview with Nasser Ahmad Nasser al-Bahri, who is also known as Abu Jandal, appeared in the London based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper on Tuesday. Although the name of the bodyguard has not been widely known in the past, his claims are believed to be authentic. The interview was posted yesterday on the Middle East Media and Research Institute’s Web site.

Mr. al-Bahri said that in Yemen, the Al Qaeda organization is in disarray as a result of the American-led war on terror. “At present, one could say that Al Qaeda does not exist in Yemen as an organization. There are only individuals who believe in the ideas of Al Qaeda.”

The president of MEMRI, Yigal Carmon, told The New York Sun yesterday that the newspaper has carried many Al Qaeda postings in the past. “Anything that appears in Al-Quds Al-Arabi has the editor’s input. That editor, Abd al Bari Atwan, is pro-Saddam and pro-Bin Laden.”

Mr. al-Bahri, who was born in Saudi Arabia, was arrested in 2001 in Yemen on suspicion of involvement in the attack on the American destroyer USS Cole. He was released later after receiving amnesty from the Yemeni president, Ali Abdallah Saleh.

Mr. al-Bahri said he “served for a while as [bin Laden’s] personal bodyguard,” and even went to Yemen to arrange the Al Qaeda founder’s wedding to a local woman. Mr. bin Laden’s Yemenite father made his fortune in Saudi Arabia but the arch terrorist is believed to consider himself a Yemenite.

“I can tell you that 95% of Al Qaeda members are Yemenites,” Mr. al-Bahri said. Mr. bin Laden’s “bodyguards are Yemenite, the drill instructors in the camps are Yemenite, the frontline leaders are Yemenite, and all of the operations against America were coordinated with the Yemenite members of the organization.”

Al Qaeda still has no “peace” with the Sana’a government, he added in the interview, but the organization’s activities there came to an end “when Sheik Abu Ali Al-Harithi, commander of the organization in Yemen, was martyred.”

Al-Harithi was killed when a missile from an American drone struck him in the desert of Marib in November 2002. At the time, the drone attack was compared with Israeli operations against terrorist leaders in the West Bank and Gaza that were roundly criticized around the world.

Since then President Saleh’s government has cooperated with America in the war on terror and rounded up hundred of Al Qaeda operatives, including six suspects in the bombing of the USS Cole at the port of Aden in 2000 and 15 on trial related to the attack on the French tanker Limburg in 2002. That trial’s final hearings are expected Saturday, the Sana’a court announced last Monday.

Mr. al-Bahri, who claims to know intimately the details on both attacks, said that “only two people” were involved in the Cole attack, Hassan Al-Khamri and Ibrahim Al-Thur, who died in the suicide bombing.

The Cole was chosen to “damage the [American] reputation in the naval arena, to raise the morale of the Muslims, and to prove to the Islamic nation that its sons are capable of striking the nation’s enemies wherever they may be: by sea, by air, and by land…Nearly 71 countries are incapable of saying ‘no’ to the USA, but as individuals we can say ‘no’ to it…The choice of the best destroyer in the American Navy and the best product of the American military was a difficult blow to the USA, [which proves that] we are capable of striking them whenever we see fit and in the manner that we see fit,” Mr. al-Bahri said.

Addressing conspiracy theories in the Middle East, the former bodyguard said, “The allegations that the Mossad was responsible [for the Cole attack] are nonsense and are an attempt to cast doubt on the ability of the Muslims to do something of this sort.”

On the other hand, he said, the attack against the French tanker was “the result of a mistake of both sides.”

On Iraq, Mr. al-Bahri confirmed that many Al Qaeda operatives have entered the country and are “currently fighting in the ranks of the Iraqi resistance.” He said, “The problem is that today Al Qaeda is not an organization in the true sense of the word but only an idea that has become a faith.”

He confirmed that the man at the top of the American most-wanted list in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, “met with Osama bin Laden a great many times.” He said that Mr. al-Zarqawi is not Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, where the organization “has Iraqi leaders present on the ground… and they are not in need of al-Zarqawi.”

Asked why the Americans were able to arrest Saddam Hussein but not Mr. bin Laden, Mr. al-Bahri said that the difference between the two is the support they receive from their constituents.

“Saddam has some dark chapters in his past,” he said, citing attacks against Iraq’s Kurds and Shiites, “the violation of Iraqi women, the anarchy, the despotism, and the enslavement of the Iraqi people.” These, he added, “caused him to be hated, and that made his arrest easier.”

On the other hand, “Wherever you go from one corner of the world to another,” Mr. bin Laden “is popular and well-received.”

As for the organization’s goals, Mr. al-Bahri said they remained the same since Al Qaeda’s inception: “To sow conflict between the United States and the Islamic world.”

And in an ominous warning that Al Qaeda might move from large-scale, spectacular terrorism to retail attacks around the world, Mr. al-Bahri said, “I remember that Sheik Osama Bin Laden used to say that we cannot, as an organization, continue in quality operations, but rather we must aspire to commit operations that will drag the United States into a regional confrontation with the Islamic peoples.”