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Yemeni navy foils plot to attack warship with explosive-laden boat

28 August 2011 02:02 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Yemen’s navy Saturday foiled a suicide bomb attack on one of its warships off the southern flashpoint province of Abyan, where the navy were taking part in a joint military offensive against al-Qaida militants, the Defense Ministry said, APA reports quoting Xinhua..

In a statement posted on its website, the ministry said a suspected explosive-laden boat was trying to collide with the warship.

"The Yemeni naval forces fired warning bullets into air to try to stop the boat, but its crew members ignored such warning, keeping advancing quickly from the Abyan coast toward the warship late Saturday," said the statement, citing the commander of the Yemeni Navy Admiral Royce Mujawar as saying.

"Such ignoring forced the naval forces to shell the suspected booby-trapped boat, causing it to drown," Admiral Mujawar added.

Meanwhile, a provincial military official told Xinhua that the navy’s units dived to check the contents of the sunken boat.

The event is considered as a reminder of the attack by al-Qaida militants against the USS Cole in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000, which, using similar tactic, killed 17 U.S. sailors and wounded 40.

Abyan, some 480 km south of the capital Sanaa, has almost been controlled by the resurgent al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula since the militants seized the provincial capital of Zinjibar late in May and other cities, where Yemeni forces have launched a massive offensive against the terrorist group.