Terror Evidence Mounts in Tanker Blast

Oct. 8 -- Evidence is mounting that the French oil tanker that sustained an explosion off the coast of Yemen this weekend might have been the target of a terrorist attack.

If the attack on the tanker was terror-related, that would make today's attack on two U.S. Marines involved in a training exercise in Kuwait the second terror attack this week.

Intelligence officials told ABCNEWS that al Qaeda may be going after softer targets, such as commercial shipping targets. Al Qaeda is the terror organization that is believed to be responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

U.S. military sources said the physical evidence from the French tanker strongly indicates that it was a terrorist attack. They pointed to the large hole in the water line of the Limburg, and said the direction of the buckle of the steel plates indicated it has been attacked.

The Captain Believes

The captain of the boat, Hubert Ardillon, has maintained the explosion on Sunday was a deliberate act of sabotage, though U.S. and Yemeni officials so far have been less sure.

Ardillon said he believes one of his crew members who says he saw a fishing boat approach the vessel before the blast.

"My position could not allow me to see any boat approaching the tanker Limburg's side, but one of my crew members saw it," Ardillon told The Associated Press.

"I heard an explosion, then a fire started, and then I heard three or four explosions, each 45 minutes apart," he said.

The fire raged for hours aboard the tanker but was put out on Monday. The body of a missing Bulgarian crew member was found on shore today. The other 24 crew members, eight of them French and the rest Bulgarian, were safely evacuated Sunday.

Conflicting Interests

On Monday, a senior State Department official said the damage suggested "things were blown out" of the tanker instead of the other way around.

The chief Yemeni investigator, Minister of Sea Transport Said Yafaai, called the captain's statements "irresponsible," and said nothing learned so far suggests terrorism.