A missile fired by an unmanned U.S. aircraft has killed six alleged members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in Yemen, including a key suspect in an attack on a U.S. warship two years ago, a U.S. official said on Monday. The official told Reuters in Washington that a Central Intelligence Agency drone carried out Sunday's attack on a car carrying the six which Yemen said included one of two key suspects sought as leading al Qaeda operatives in the Arab country.

The dead man, Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, also known as Abu Ali, was suspected of involvement in the 2000 bombing of the U.S. warship Cole in a Yemeni port that killed 17 U.S. sailors.

Washington blames that blast in Aden and the September 11 attacks in the United States on the Saudi-born bin Laden, whose ancestral home is Yemen.

The U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said the American military was not involved in Sunday's attack.

"As I understand it, it was an agency drone" that conducted the strike, said the U.S. official, who did not give details.

The CIA previously has used remote-controlled "Predator" drones to fire missiles at suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

The Defense Department and CIA refused to comment.

A Yemeni Interior Ministry official told Yemen's Saba news agency that arms, traces of explosives and communications equipment were found in the car in which the six suspected al Qaeda members were traveling in eastern Marib province.

ANTI-TERROR COOPERATION WITH YEMEN PRAISED

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had earlier refused to say whether U.S. forces or CIA agents had any part in the blast, but he praised anti-al Qaeda cooperation with Yemen.

"There is no question but that there are al Qaeda in Yemen," Rumsfeld told reporters. "The (U.S.-Yemen) arrangement has been a good one and it is ongoing."

U.S. military trainers were sent this year to advise Yemeni troops on striking al Qaeda fighters believed hiding there.

Yemeni authorities have been hunting militants believed to be sheltering in the rugged mountains between Sanaa and Marib, a stronghold for disgruntled tribesmen who have often kidnapped tourists and foreigners in Yemen in recent years.

Saba news agency said police arrested two people suspected of a separate attack on Sunday on a helicopter of Hunt Oil, a U.S. firm working in Yemen. One person was slightly hurt when gunmen fired at the helicopter after it took off from Sanaa for Marib.

The attack on the car coincided with a visit to Marib by the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, but a source close to the embassy told Reuters that there was no link between the visit and the blast or the attack on the helicopter.

A French supertanker was also holed in an apparent attack off the Yemeni coast last month, almost two years after the Cole attack.

The U.S. military has 800 or more Marines and elite Special Operations troops and, according to published reports, some CIA paramilitary personnel in the Horn of Africa. Many of the troops are at a French military base in Djibouti and aboard U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is seen with a Hellfire-C laser guided missile under one wing in this file photo from a February 21, 2001 test flight at Nellis Airforce Base in Nevada. A missile fired by an unmanned CIA drone hit a car believed to be carrying suspected al Qaeda members in Yemen November 4, 2002 and killed several occupants a U.S. official said November 5. (USAFMC/Reuter