20 arrests over Limburg [Archives:2002/45/Front Page]

SANA’A – Authorities have detained a total of 20 people in connection with an attack last month on the French oil tanker Limburg, security officials said Wednesday.
Those detained included two watchmen from the house rented by the suspected perpetrators of the attack on the Limburg, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
Other detainees included three people who transported a boat used in the attack from the house to the shore.
The officials said the main suspects in the attack were still at large.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the official investigation into the Limburg blast is over, and the ship has been pulled to waters in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. It was attacked by a small explosives-laden boat off Yemen’s coast on Oct. 6. One Bulgarian crewman died and about 90,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the Arabian Sea.
Earlier this month, Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Kader Bajammal said the attack was similar to the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and might have been carried out by the same group.
The United States blames Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida for the suicide attack on the Cole while the ship was refueling in the southern port of Aden. Yemen is yet to set a date for the trial of at least six people arrested in the Cole investigation, and so far hasn’t directly linked the attack to al-Qaida.
A U.S. intelligence official in Washington has said U.S. experts believed the Limburg attack was carried out by people linked to al-Qaida.
Two statements last week attributed to bin Laden and al-Qaida hailed the attack on the Limburg but didn’t claim responsibility.
Officials have said the boat used in the attack was bought from outside Yemen and transported by land into the country.

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