Explosion Sets French Oil Tanker Ablaze off Yemen's Eastern Coast

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, October 07, 2002

Explosion Sets French Oil Tanker Ablaze off Yemen's Eastern Coast

A giant French oil tanker was set ablaze by an explosion off the eastern coast of Yemen on Sunday, Yemeni government officials said.

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A giant French oil tanker was set ablaze by an explosion off the eastern coast of Yemen on Sunday, Yemeni government officials said.

The tanker Limburg, carrying 397,000 barrels of crude oil, was on its way from Iran to the Yemeni port of Mina al-Dabah to load more oil when the blast occurred, they said.

Eleven of the 25 crew members on board have been rescued and the rest are missing, they added.

French officials in Yemen reportedly affirmed that it was a terrorist attack, saying a small boat loaded with explosives rammed into the ship, setting it on fire.

"It seems to be an attack in the same style as the USS Cole," they said.

In 2000, an explosion ripped through the US destroyer USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 servicemen and wounding morethan 30 others. Washington blames the terror attack on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

Yemen, the ancestral home of bin Laden accused by the United States of orchestrating the Sept. 11 terror attack, has arrested more than 100 suspected members of al Qaeda and other Islamist groups in an effort to clean up its image as a haven for Islamic militants.

Yemeni officials, however, reportedly said they did not believe that the incident was a terrorist attack.

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