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Limburg saboteurs had inside information
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| The
Limburg - only one person on board saw the speedboat as it hurtled
towards the tanker |
London,
19 June 2003 - Terrorists who rammed the French oil tanker Limburg
off the coast of Yemen in October 2002 attacked the ship's most vulnerable
point - a sign that they had accurate information about the exact location
of cargo and ballast.
The ship was not moving because it was picking up a pilot, when the suicide
attack took place in the early morning. Only one person on board - a cadet
on duty on the bridge - saw the speedboat as it hurtled towards the tanker.
Peter Raes, managing director of Franship, told a conference on corporate
security in the post 9/11 world that the terrorists must have picked up
information radioed to port authorities ashore.
The information could have come from a worker in Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia,
where the Limburg loaded - but there were many possible sources.
Mr Raes said he did not think that the terrorist organization Al Qaeda
was responsible. The most likely motive was to destabilize the Yemeni
government.
The tanker was carrying 55,000 tonnes of crude oil. The blast caused a
fire on board, killing one member of a crew of 26. Yemeni officials long
insisted that the blast was an accident originating on the tanker - but
all the evidence showed that the hole in the ship's side was caused by
an impact from outside the vessel.
Mr Raes was speaking at a conference organized by Commercial Crime Services,
the London-based anti-commercial crime division of the International Chamber
of Commerce.
ICC
Commercial Crime Services
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