''Maritime Jewel'' was a

double-hulled A double hull is a ship hull design and construction method where the bottom and sides of the ship have two complete layers of watertight hull surface: one outer layer forming the normal hull of the ship, and a second inner hull which is some dis ...

oil tanker An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crud ...

launched in 1999 and completed in 2000. Entering service that year, the ship was known as MV ''Limburg'' until 2003. The ship carried

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude ...

between ports in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

. On 6 October 2002, ''Limburg'' was attacked by

suicide bomb A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...

ers, causing roughly to leak into the

Gulf of Aden The Gulf of Aden ( ar, خليج عدن, so, Gacanka Cadmeed 𐒅𐒖𐒐𐒕𐒌 𐒋𐒖𐒆𐒗𐒒) is a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen to the north, the Arabian Sea to the east, Djibouti to the west, and the Guardafui Channe ...

. One crew member was killed and twelve more wounded in the attack. Four days after the attack, the tanker was towed to

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

where she was repaired and renamed ''Maritime Jewel''. ''Maritime Jewel'' was

broken up Ship-breaking (also known as ship recycling, ship demolition, ship dismantling, or ship cracking) is a type of ship disposal involving the breaking up of ships for either a source of parts, which can be sold for re-use, or for the extraction ...

for scrap at

Chittagong Chittagong ( /ˈtʃɪt əˌɡɒŋ/ ''chit-uh-gong''; ctg, চিটাং; bn, চিটাগং), officially Chattogram ( bn, চট্টগ্রাম), is the second-largest city in Bangladesh after Dhaka and third largest city in B ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

on 15 May 2018.

Description

Ordered as ''Limburg'' the vessel was

long overall __NOTOC__ Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, an ...

and

between perpendiculars Length between perpendiculars (often abbreviated as p/p, p.p., pp, LPP, LBP or Length BPP) is the length of a ship along the summer load line from the forward surface of the stem, or main bow perpendicular member, to the after surface of the stern ...

with a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

of . The ship's

gross tonnage Gross tonnage (GT, G.T. or gt) is a nonlinear measure of a ship's overall internal volume. Gross tonnage is different from gross register tonnage. Neither gross tonnage nor gross register tonnage should be confused with measures of mass or weigh ...

(GT) was 157,833 tons, with a

deadweight tonnage Deadweight tonnage (also known as deadweight; abbreviated to DWT, D.W.T., d.w.t., or dwt) or tons deadweight (DWT) is a measure of how much weight a ship can carry. It is the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water, ballast water, provi ...

(DWT) of 299,364 tons and a net tonnage (NT) of 108,708 tons. The ship was powered by a

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

driving one

shaft Shaft may refer to: Rotating machine elements * Shaft (mechanical engineering), a rotating machine element used to transmit power * Line shaft, a power transmission system * Drive shaft, a shaft for transferring torque * Axle, a shaft around whi ...

giving the vessel a maximum speed of .

History

''Limburg''s

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one o ...

on 24 May 1999 and the ship was launched on 28 August 1999. ''Limburg'' was completed on 5 January 2000 and entered service that year.

Bombing

On 6 October 2002, ''Limburg'' was carrying of crude oil from Saudi Arabia to Malaysia, and was in the Gulf of Aden off

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

to pick up another load of oil. She was registered under a French flag and had been chartered by the Malaysian petrol firm

Petronas Petroliam Nasional Berhad (National Petroleum Limited), commonly known as Petronas, is a Malaysian oil and gas company. Established in 1974 and wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia, the corporation is vested with all oil and gas reso ...

. While she was some distance offshore, suicide bombers rammed an explosives-laden

dinghy A dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or towed by a larger vessel for use as a tender. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor. Some are rigged for sailing but they differ from sailing dinghies, which ...

into the

starboard Port and starboard are nautical terms for watercraft and aircraft, referring respectively to the left and right sides of the vessel, when aboard and facing the bow (front). Vessels with bilateral symmetry have left and right halves which are ...

side of the tanker. Upon detonation the vessel caught fire and approximately of oil leaked into the Gulf of Aden. Although Yemeni officials initially claimed that the explosion was caused by an accident, later investigations found traces of

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

on the damaged ship. One crew member was killed, and twelve other crew members were injured. The fire was extinguished, and four days later ''Limburg'' was towed to Dubai,

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

. The ship was renamed ''Maritime Jewel'', bought by Tanker Pacific, and repaired at

Dubai Drydocks Dubai Drydocks is a dry docks facility located adjacent to Port Rashid in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The idea for Dubai Drydocks began in 1971. After feasibility studies and construction, the facility opened in 1983. It is the only large dry d ...

from March to August 2003. The attack caused the short-term collapse of international shipping in the Gulf of Aden and as a result, cost Yemen $3.8 million a month in port revenues.

Responsibility

Al Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...

claimed responsibility for the attack on the Jehad.net website, which has since been shut down.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Abdu al-Nashiri (; ar, عبد الرحيم حسين محمد عبده النشري; born January 5, 1965) is a Saudi Arabian citizen alleged to be the mastermind of the bombing of USS ''Cole'' and other maritime ...

, who allegedly also masterminded the USS ''Cole'' bombing, was charged by US military prosecutors for planning the attack.

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

issued a statement, which read: On 3 February 2006, Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeiee, who had been

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

for the ''Limburg'' attack, and 22 other suspected or convicted Al-Qaeda members escaped from jail in Yemen. Among them was Jamal al-Badawi, who masterminded the USS ''Cole'' bombing of 12 October 2000. Of the 23 escapees, 13 had been convicted of the ''Cole'' and ''Limburg'' bombings. On 1 October 2006, al-Rabeiee and Mohammed Daylami were shot and killed by Yemeni security forces during raids on two buildings in the capital

Sana'a Sanaa ( ar, صَنْعَاء, ' , Yemeni Arabic: ; Old South Arabian: 𐩮𐩬𐩲𐩥 ''Ṣnʿw''), also spelled Sana'a or Sana, is the capital and largest city in Yemen and the centre of Sanaa Governorate. The city is not part of the Governo ...

. One of al-Rabeiee's

accomplice Under the English common law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even if they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller ...

s was also arrested during the raids. In February 2014

Ahmed al-Darbi Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al-Darbi ( ar, احمد محمد احمد هزاع الدربي) is a citizen of Saudi Arabia who was held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba from August 2002 to May 2018; in May 2018, he was ...

pleaded guilty before the

Guantanamo military commission ThGuantanamo military commissionswere established by President George W. Bush – through a Military Order – on November 13, 2001, to try certain non-citizen terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison. To date, there have been a total of e ...

to helping plan several maritime

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

attacks including the ''Limburg'' attack. By the time of the attack, al-Darbi was already detained at Guantanamo.

Fate

''Maritime Jewel'' was

for scrap at Chittagong, Bangladesh on 1 May 2018.

References

External links

Yemen ship attack 'was terrorism'
(BBC)

(Channelnewsasia)
Repairs post 2002 terrorist attack off Yemen
(Google + photo album) 1999 ships 2002 in Yemen 2002 murders in Asia Al-Qaeda attacks Maritime incidents in 2002 Murder in Yemen October 2002 crimes October 2002 events in Asia Oil spills Oil tankers Ship bombings Suicide bombings in 2002 Suicide bombings in Yemen Terrorist incidents against shipping Terrorist incidents in Asia in 2002 Terrorist incidents in Yemen in the 2000s {{Campaignbox al-Qaeda attacks