Several law suits by families of victims in the 2000 al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in Yemen had until recently been held up by technicalities raised by Sudan’s lawyers regarding procedure.  A U.S. District Judge  in New York is now forcing banks in New York which hold Sudanese assets to pay up. 

The judge in the case of four brothers and the mother of Kevin Shawn Rux, who was an electronic warfare expert on board the USS Cole, found that Iran and Sudan were directly involved in setting up al Qaeda’s networks in Yemen going back to 1991.  The banks involved are Mashreqbank PSC, BNP Paribas SA and Credit Agricole SA.  Two of the three banks are South African.  South Africa is known for its close political and financial ties to both Sudan and Iran. 

Iran’s connections to al Qaeda and their governments role in supporting terrorists and killing Americans was not addressed in the recent deal cut by the American president to give Iran 150 billion dollars as part of an arrangement for Iran to slow it’s nuclear weapons program.  The actions by several U.S. federal judges regarding the USS  Cole attack gives credibility to a recent threat by Senator Ted Cruz that if Democrats lose the White House, those doing business with Iran must face both legal and overdue geo-political consequences of their state sponsorship of jihadist violence.