The United States said today it was unclear what caused a blast that gutted a French-flagged tanker in the Gulf of Aden at the weekend but one senior official said it appeared to be an accident.
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Smoke billows from the French oil tanker Limburg off the port of Mina al Dabah in the Gulf of Aden yesterday.
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The Yemeni government has ruled out an assault similar to the 2000 bombing of the US destroyer USS Cole in the port of Aden, saying a fire caused the blast. But the ship's owners said "terrorists" using a boat might have staged a bomb attack on the tanker.
A senior State Department official seemed to back up the Yemeni government's contention, saying the blast appeared to have taken place on board the vessel "and was therefore probably an accident."
However, the official US stance was that it was too soon to say what caused the explosion. "I don't think I can announce any conclusions at this point," State Department spokesman Mr Richard Boucher told a news briefing.
US naval investigators and other experts have been sent to the scene, where Yemen and France launched an investigation, a senior State Department official told reporters separately.