Terrorism not ruled out in tanker blast

A senior Yemeni official today said terrorism cannot be completely ruled out in the explosion of a French supertanker.

"It might have been an arranged and deliberate act, and a meticulously planned one, for that matter. We have intensified our search and intelligence gathering. There are contradicting and misleading statements, and we are trying to clear everything up," he said.

The comments from the official, who is close to the investigation, are a radical change from Yemen's earlier position.

Yemeni officials had repeatedly and strongly rejected claims that the blast of the Limburg oil tanker was anything but an accident.

Also today, the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper said it had received a statement from a Yemeni fundamentalist group claiming responsibility for the explosion.

According to Asharq al-Awsat, the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, a militant group accused of carrying out several bombings and kidnappings of foreigners in Yemen, said it carried out the bombing of the tanker to avenge the execution of one of its leaders, Zein al-Abidine al-Mihdar.

Al-Mihdar was executed for his role in the kidnapping of 16 Western tourists in 1998. Four of the tourists died during a botched rescue attempt by government forces.

The Aden-Abyan Islamic Army is believed to have been set up by Yemenis and other Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 1980s and later returned to their countries to wage a jihad, or holy war, against their own governments. They are also opposed to foreign presence in Yemen.

The governor of Hadramout, Abdul Kader Hilal, questioned the claim, saying the group does not have the means to carry out such an operation.

But he said one of the group’s members was among those detained for questioning.

Yemeni and French counterterrorism officials boarded the crippled tanker today.

The Yemeni team has asked that an autopsy be carried out on the body of a Bulgarian crewman killed in the fire and explosion.

It also called for a thorough inspection of the perimeter of the tanker, a Yemeni official said. Saeed Yafaei, Yemen’s minister of sea transport, yesterday said there was no evidence suggesting terrorism in Sunday’s blast.

The tanker’s captain, Hubert Ardillon, contends it was a deliberate act.

Attention has focused on reports of a fishing boat approaching the tanker before the explosion. Ardillon said on Tuesday that one of his crew members had seen the boat.

French authorities had said it was too early to rule out any possibility.

A senior US State Department noted on Monday that the damage suggested 'things were blown out' from the tanker instead of the other way around, which would be more likely in a deliberate attack by a small boat.

The United States, however, is not ruling out terrorism, and American officials note that some reported circumstances are similar to the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, in which an explosives-laden boat crashed into the destroyer. The Cole attack was blamed on Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network.