Springfield State Journal Register January 5, 2003 Springfield man on front line of war on terrorism  By MARCUS STERN COPLEY NEWS SERVICE SAN'A, Yemen - Edmund J. Hull works inside a perimeter of snipers, sandbags, thick protective walls and magnetometers. But from his U.S. Embassy office in Yemen's capital city of San'a, the U.S. ambassador recently took time to pay homage to his hometown. "I grew up in Springfield," Hull said. "One of my first really significant learning opportunities was my work with the Illinois State Journal and Register. It was a wonderful chance for me to learn about city government, state government. "And the other very significant (childhood experience was) the student of the year award that I won that allowed me to finance my years at Princeton, which eventually led me overseas and into a career in the foreign service." The former Springfield Marine Bank (Bank One) named Hull student of the year in 1967. He was valedictorian that year at Griffin High School. He edited his high school newspaper, which led to a stint during his college years as a reporter for the old Illinois State Journal, a predecessor of The State Journal-Register. Today, he is on the front line of the war on terrorism. While the diplomatic post in Yemen might have been a backwater before Sept. 11, 2001, that's certainly no longer the case. Hull was sworn in a week after the terrorist attacks. Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, immediately became a concern as the United States began driving al-Qaeda and Taliban forces out of Afghanistan. Some feared Yemen would be al-Qaeda’s next stop. It had been the site of the October 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole. Since then, a French tanker has been attacked here similarly. Just in the past week, a gunman killed three American Baptist missionary hospital workers and injured a fourth. And a captured Yemeni, Ramzi Binalshibh, allegedly played a key role in organizing the Sept. 11 strikes. Since Hull has been in place, the United States has aggressively pushed for Yemen’s cooperation in the war on terrorism. More remarkably, the embassy has extended that campaign to winning over tribal leaders in remote areas. Hull, who speaks Arabic and French, was one of the State Department’s top counter-terrorism officials before taking over the post in Yemen. He has been both praised and criticized by Yemeni politicians for his aggressive prosecution of the U.S. counter-terrorism agenda in Yemen. The campaign came into sharp international focus Nov. 3 when a remotely piloted CIA drone aircraft fired a missile that killed two top al-Qaeda suspects along with four others while they were driving in a remote tribal area. Yemeni opposition party leaders and at least one U.S. newspaper described Hull as being involved in the Nov. 3 missile attack. When asked for details about U.S. efforts to build support in Yemen and his specific role, Hull declined, saying he wouldn’t discuss intelligence and operational matters. Throughout it all, he seemed wistful for his Springfield days. “San’a may be a long way from Springfield, but in my mind the two are connected,” Hull said.