An explosion and fire engulfed a French oil tanker on Sunday off the coast of Yemen. Yemeni officials described the blaze as an accident caused by an oil leak.
But the ship’s owner said it was a ”deliberate act.” French officials said it was still too early to rule out terrorism.
”We don’t have enough elements to allow us to formulate a … hypothesis which would point to a terrorist attack,” French Foreign Ministry representative Francois Rivasseau said on Sunday night in Paris.
”It’s a serious issue, a serious matter, and we have to wait for the first concrete results of the police research,” he said.
The captain of the Limburg said the fire started on his tanker and an explosion went off while crewmen tried to get the blaze under control, an unidentified Yemeni official told the state-run Saba news agency. He said efforts were being made to contain oil leakage from the ship.
In France, an official with Euronav, the company that owns the Limburg, said their understanding was that the captain, Hubert Ardillon, saw a small fishing boat pulling up toward the tanker before the blast at 9:15 am (0615 GMT). Alain Ferre, financial and administrative director of Euronav, speculated it could not have caused such a huge blast unless it was carrying explosives.
However, company director Jacques Moizan said later that Euronav wasn’t sure if it was a fishing boat that had hit the tanker. There were reports that the explosion occurred as a pilot boat was readying to escort the tanker into the port of Mina al-Dabah. ”I cannot provide details about the description of the small boat that hit the starboard (side),” said Moizan, adding, ”We believe it was a deliberate act. It was not an accident.”
Yemen has been eager to emphasize its commitment to the US-led war on terror and shake off its reputation as a hotbed of extremism — it is believed to have been a longtime base for suspected members of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida, the terror network blamed for September 11, and is the bin Laden family’s ancestral home.
The French Foreign Ministry said the Limburg was carrying 25 crew members. Euronav said the crew included eight French and 17 Bulgarians. One Bulgarian was missing and the rest of the crew were in a hotel in Yemen, he said.
Ferre said some crew members jumped into the water and were rescued, while others tried to put out the fire until it became clear the flames were no longer under control. ”To our knowledge, there have been no deaths,” the French Foreign Ministry said. ”The top priority of French authorities is to help those aboard the tanker.”
Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Kader Bajammal, meanwhile, formed a special committee to investigate. French President Jacques Chirac is following the situation closely, his representative Catherine Colonna said. The French prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, told reporters it was ”too early to comment” on the cause of the blast.
The tanker caught fire about 5,5 kilometres from Yemen’s Arabian Sea port of Mina al-Dabah and its captain issued a distress call to port authorities, the Yemeni officials said.
Saba reported the government had asked the Canadian oil firm Nexen Inc. to help clean up the oil spill. The Yemeni officials said the tanker was coming from the Iranian port of Khark carrying 397 749 barrels of crude and was to load more at Mina al-Dabah, 800 kilometres southeast of the capital San’a.
However, in France, Euronav said the ship, built in 2000, had filled up with oil in Saudi Arabia and had planned to load up with more oil in Yemen before heading to Malaysia.
The port, 570 kilometres east of Aden, is relatively quiet and is mainly used by tankers to load oil. In 2000, an explosion nearly destroyed the USS Cole during a refueling stop at Aden port. The blast killed 17 US sailors and was blamed on al-Qaida.
Security has since been tightened at Yemeni ports. A Bahrain-based spokesman for the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, which has aircraft carriers, destroyers and other ships in the Gulf and Arabian Sea, said the French tanker’s fire had prompted no changes in US security measures.
”We are always on a security posture ready for any kind of situation,” Lt. Chris Davis said without elaborating. The Bahrain-based Maritime Liaison Office, which coordinates communication between the US Navy and the commercial shipping in the Gulf and Arabian Sea, issued an advisory in September warning ships of the possibility al-Qaida was planning attacks on oil tankers. – Sapa-AP