SAN'A, Yemen -- An explosives-laden boat rammed a French oil tanker off Yemen, the interior minister said Wednesday -- the first official Yemeni acknowledgment the ship was the victim of a terror attack reminiscent of the deadly assault on the USS Cole two years ago.

Interior Minister Rashad al-Eleimi said arrests had been made but did not describe the suspects or how many were detained, or what they were accused of.

He said the Oct. 6 bombing of the Limburg and subsequent fire was "a deliberate act of terror carried out by an explosives-laden boat."

Police had found a rented house in which the explosives were prepared, the minister said in a statement carried by the official news agency Saba.

In the attack on the French tanker, a Bulgarian member of the crew was killed, a gaping hole was torn into the vessel and some 90,000 barrels of oil was released into waters off Yemen.