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Oil militants attack again
20/02/2006 09:33 - (SA)
Lagos - Nigerian militants who have
kidnapped nine foreign oil workers said they had blown up a
military houseboat and an oil pipeline manifold on Monday, the
latest attacks in a campaign that has cut exports by a fifth.
In an e-mail, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger
Delta also threatened to attack any vessel trying to use Royal
Dutch Shell's 340 000 barrel-per-day Forcados oil export
platform, which the group bombed on Saturday.
"Patrol units ... carried out attacks on one houseboat
belonging to the Nigerian army and the Shell Ughelli
Odidi-Escravos manifold. Both were destroyed with explosives,"
the militants said, adding that the soldiers in the houseboat
fled before it was destroyed.
The militants said that Shell was planning to use one
manifold on the Forcados export platform, which was not damaged
in Saturday's attack to export oil.
"Regardless of whatever security arrangements they depend on
and time of the day, we will attack this vessel and execute
everyone on board. It is needless to say what will happen to the
surviving manifold in the next few hours," they said.
The government says the militant movement is a cover for
thieves siphoning crude oil on a commercial scale from pipelines
across the vast wetlands region of southern Nigeria.
The militants accused Nigerian military and security
commanders in the area of being responsible for the theft.
"Oil is not like diamonds and requires ships to come in
unhindered. This is facilitated by the heads of these security
organisations who are paid a standard fee for every vessel
loaded," they said.
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