- SANAA (AFP) - A French supertanker
set ablaze in a mystery explosion which the operators said was caused by
an attack trashed about in distress off the Yemeni coast late Sunday.
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- The explosion which left the supertanker badly holed
came a week before the second anniversary of a terrorist attack in Yemen
on the destroyer USS Cole.
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- While a French diplomat in Sanaa said the blast was caused
by a small boat packed with explosives that rammed the tanker, the French
foreign ministry said there was no evidence so far of an attack.
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- Yemeni authorities, meanwhile, set up a crisis cell and
voiced fears of a major oil slick spreading along the Arabian Sea coast.
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- "The oil tanker was rammed by a small boat stuffed
with explosives," as it came by an offshore terminal some 700 kilometres
(450 miles) east of Aden, Vice Consul Marcel Goncalves told AFP.
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- "It seems to be an attack in the same style as the
USS Cole," he said of the hi-tech destroyer bombed by suspected al-Qaeda
militants in Aden harbour on October 12, 2000.
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- Seventeen US sailors died and 38 were wounded in that
attack.
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- The supertanker incident also came a day before the first
anniversary of the US-led war against the Taliban and the al-Qaeda terror
network in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden claims Yemen as
his ancestral home.
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- A gaping hole was blown into the side of the 330-metre-long
(1,100-foot-long) tanker, named the Limburg and managed by the company
France Shipmanagement, the embassy said.
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- Twelve of the 25-man crew were hospitalised with injuries
in the port city of Al-Mukallah, the embassy added.
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- Yemeni officials said all hands had been rescued and
they were passing the night in a hotel.
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- But in France, Limburg owners Euronav, based outside
Nantes on the Atlantic coast, said they believed it was a deliberate attack
and added that one of the ship's 17 Bulgarian crew was still missing. A
Yemeni pilot was most likely missing as well, they said.
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- The Bulgarian foreign ministry, meanwhile, said one sailor
was still missing but his nationality was unknown.
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- Eight of the crew were French, and the office of French
President Jacques Chirac said French experts would travel to Yemen soon
to join the investigation into the explosion.
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- "For us it's deliberate. Because to cut through
the first hull of this double-hulled oil tanker, which is in good condition
and only two years old, you need a very, very strong force," Euronav
director Jacques Moizan told AFP.
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- "It still has to be confirmed .... but a little
boat which rams an oil tanker with a capacity of 500,000 tonnes, it's very
surprising," added administrative director Alain Ferre.
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- Limburg's captain Hubert Ardillon, who spoke by telephone
to his headquarters, had seen the small vessel approach, Ferre revealed.
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- Ardillon could not see if the vessel carried explosives
but Euronav management concluded that it was loaded with explosives given
the extent of the damage, Ferre added.
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- Euronav and France Shipmanagement are subsidiaries of
holding group Euronav Luxembourg.
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- Yemeni officials balked at the idea that a rerun of the
Cole could have taken place.
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- "The fire aboard the French tanker was caused by
an explosion in one of the ship's reservoirs," said an official govenrment
spokesman.
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- The spokesman added that an inquiry had been launched
into the causes of the blast, and Chirac's office said the decision to
send in French experts came during a telephone conversation he held with
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
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- The authorities were in contact with the Limburg's owners
and insurers to ensure "the rapid despatch of tugs to control the
fire and limit pollution," the Yemeni spokesman said.
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- The Limburg was being pushed by winds towards al-Mukallah,
the spokesman also said, adding that the authorities were trying to "avoid
enormous damage to the town."
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- The Limburg, carrying 397,000 barrels of crude from Iran's
Kharg terminal, was to add a further 1.5 million barrels of Yemeni oil
from Mina al-Thabah, an official with the Hadramaut local government said.
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- Transport and Maritime Affairs Minister Saed Yafhi was
put in charge of the cell, instructed "to take the necessary measures
to bring the fire under control on board the tanker and to fight maritime
pollution."
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- The spokesman did not specify if a slick had already
leaked out of the vessel.
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- A ship had already left Aden "to fight pollution"
and the Canadian oil firm Nexen, which works in the area, was also expected
to assist, the spokesman said.
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- The Hadramaut governorate also released a statement saying
simply that the explosion was caused "when the reservoirs filled with
crude caught fire with the vessel three nautical miles from the offshore
terminal of Al-Thabah."
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- In Paris, the French foreign ministry offered no comment
Sunday.
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- "An enquiry has been launched by the competent authorities
in Yemen in order to determine the causes of the explosion," it said.
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- "At this stage and pending the results of this enquiry,
any comment on the cause of the fire would be premature."
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- The ship was later located just off Ar-Riyan airport,
outside Al-Mukalla, a correspondent at the scene reported. A huge pall
of smoke blew over the Al-Mukalla area of Hadramaut.
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