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| Arabia |
| Yemen convinced French tanker blast was an attack |
| 2002-10-13 |
| After a week of prevarication, Yemeni authorities have finally been persuaded that a deadly blast which crippled a French supertanker off the Yemeni coast was an attack. "The Yemenis are now convinced of the theory of a terrorist attack and no longer deny it during meetings with the US and French experts," a source close to the investigation told AFP on condition of anonymity. Yemeni authorities "no longer speak of an accident," the source said Sunday. "But it is, however, up to the Yemeni government to officially announce its position, confirming that it was an attack." Already struggling to improve an increasingly tarnished security image, Yemeni officials roundly denied that the October 6 explosion aboard the Limburg, which killed one Bulgarian crew member was an act of terrorism, despite announcements to the contrary by the French embassy the same day. Until you admit that the problem exists, there's nothing to fix... Even on Friday, after US and French investigators found pieces of a fibre-glass boat believed to have been used in the attack and traces of TNT, Sanaa continued to deny the evidence. The "fibre-glass debris ... could belong to the tanker's rescue boat which was destroyed in the accident," insisted Transport and Maritime Affairs Minister Said Yafhi, who heads a crisis cell dealing with the incident. That represents a level of dumbness that involves reaching with both hands. I can imagine the amount of time that's being wasted reassuring the Yemenis that we don't hold them responsible personally... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |