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Explosive-Laden
Boat Rams into French Tanker off Yemen
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The USS Cole was attacked in the same harbor October 12, 2000 |
SANAA,
Yemen October 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A small boat
packed with explosives rammed and badly holed a French supertanker off
Yemen on Sunday, October 6, in what appeared to be a re-run of the
attack on the USS Cole destroyer in the Yemeni seaport of Aden.
“The
oil tanker was rammed by a small boat stuffed with explosives,” as
it passed by an off-shore terminal in the Arabian Sea, French Vice
Consul Marcel Goncalves told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“It
seems to be an attack in the same style as the USS Cole,” he said of
the warship blown up by suspected Al-Qaeda fighters in Aden harbor in
October 2000 which left seventeen U.S. sailors died and 38 others
wounded.
A
gaping hole was blown into the side of the tanker Linbourg, owned by
the company “French Ship Management”, the diplomat said.
“It
is sinking, if it has not already sunk,” Goncalves added of the
French tanker located some 700 kilometers (450 miles) east of Aden.
Twelve
of the 25 crew had been “recovered”, the vice-consul said, but
could not say what had happened to the others, AFP reported.
The
vessel, carrying 397,000 barrels of crude from Iran’s Kharj
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.
The
ship was now located just off Ar-Riyan airport, outside the city of
Al-Mukalla, 700 kilometers east of Aden, a correspondent at the scene
reported.
A
huge pall of smoke blew over the Al-Mukalla area.
Three
Frenchmen deported from Yemen for illegally attending unauthorized
Islamic institutions were questioned by French intelligence agents on
their arrival in Paris on Friday, said an official speaking on
condition of anonymity.
The
three were quizzed by members of France’s DST counter-espionage
service before being released, the official said.
Another
two Frenchmen arrested in Yemen in mid-September for the same reason
were due to return to France once they had bought tickets, he said.
The
five, all naturalized French citizens of Arab origin, were detained by
Yemeni authorities after sweeps of religious schools targeted in the
wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
A
Yemeni parliamentarian, Sultan Hazzam al-Atwani, told AFP on September
22 that intelligence services were detaining 104 people.
Fifteen
of that number were suspected of involvement in the October 2000 bomb
attack on the U.S. destroyer in Aden and the rest were arrested after
the September 11 attacks, he said.
Osama
bin Laden, whom the United States allegedly blames for both the Cole
bombing and the 9-11 attacks, which killed 3,000, was born in Saudi
Arabia but has family roots in Yemen.
On
September 21, two suspected Al-Qaeda members were killed and two
policemen wounded in a dawn raid on an alleged hideout in the Yemeni
capital Sanaa.
Police
forces exchanged machinegun fire with armed elements in the northern
al-Rawdah neighborhood, an interior ministry spokesman said.
Witnesses
said one of the suspects killed in the shootout was Yahia Mohammad
Majalli, alias “Abu Seif,” who was “wanted” by authorities.
Majalli’s
mother was slightly wounded in the leg during the clash, the witnesses
told AFP. Majalli died instantly, police said.
Police
said authorities arrested three men, believed to belong to Al-Qaeda,
who had barricaded themselves inside a house.
Police
identified one as Seif Yahia Majalli, the son of “Abu Seif”, while
another was identified as Adel al-Thur.
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