Blast in Yemen: Accident or Attack?

Authorities in Yemen are trying to figure out what caused an explosion aboard a French oil tanker on Sunday. The tanker Limburg was still burning in the Gulf of Aden early Monday as Yemeni and French officials geared up to investigate the incident. One sailor out of 25 was missing after the blast; the other crewmembers had been rescued.

While there are some reports that a small boat was traveling close to the French tanker Limburg at the time of this incident, there was no definite confirmation Sunday as to what - or whom - it may have been carrying.

Authorities are concerned that terrorists may have been involved because Yemen was the site of a terrorist attack on an American ship two years ago. The USS Cole was in the Gulf of Aden when a small boat carrying explosives rammed it, killing 17 U.S. sailors. That attack was blamed on Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

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French officials initially said this explosion was caused by a suicide terrorist attack like the one on the USS Cole, but they later said they would to wait for the results of a Yemeni investigation before drawing a conclusion on the blast. A spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry called the issue "serious," but said that authorities did not have enough information to assume it was a terrorist attack.

Officials from Yemen denied that the explosion was the work of terrorists, saying at first that a technical problem on the ship caused the fire. Later, however, they said that they also would wait and see.

Meanwhile, another immediate concern for the Yemeni government is the ship's cargo. Limburg was carrying more than 397,000 barrels of crude oil at the time of the blast. With thousands of barrels of oil said to be drifting towards the Yemeni coast, officials are afraid of an environmental disaster.