US officials investigating the cause of an explosion aboard a French tanker near Yemen have said that initial evidence suggests it was accidental.
The ship's owners had claimed it had been caused by a terrorist attack.
Yemeni officials said the blast, which destroyed the tanker, was caused by a fire on board.
Two years ago, Yemen was the scene of a suicide bomb attack on an American warship that was blamed on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
