LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria’s main militant group carried out the latest in a spate of oil-pipeline bombings Monday, cutting output from Africa’s biggest oil industry and pressing its demand that the government send more oil money to the region.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, said the sabotage of a pipeline-switching station marked the anniversary in office of President Umaru Yar’Adua, who took power May 29, 2007, with a promise to calm the oil region.
The militants, who are turning their focus from military-style raids to bombings with propaganda value, said the attack was intended to show that Yar’Adua had “failed after one year in office to ensure peace, security and reconciliation in the Niger Delta region.”
Yar’Adua’s office released a statement noting that a 15-year development plan for the Niger Delta was under way. The statement said officials were trying to separate legitimate grievances from criminality, and “tremendous efforts were being put into finding a solution.”
“Once this is implemented, the basis for the political agitation will no longer be there,” Yar’Adua said.
Yar’Adua’s government has agreed to peace accords with some militant factions and other armed groups. That has diminished some support for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta among the region’s myriad armed gangs.
But it remains the group with the greatest ability to create havoc.
The movement’s attacks have cut Nigeria’s normal daily oil output about 20 percent, helping push crude prices to new highs in international markets.
The local joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell PLC confirmed there had been a pipeline attack and said “some production” had been shut down to allow crews to contain the crude spilling from the ruptured conduit.
The militants also said their fighters battled troops in boats on the waterways of the southern oil region after the sabotage, killing 11 soldiers. They said they seized the weapons and sank the boats.
But a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, said no troops had guarded the oil installation overnight and no armed encounters were reported.
He called reports that soldiers had been killed “a lie.”
It was not possible to reconcile the two accounts.
If confirmed, Monday’s attacks would stand as an unusually deadly engagement between militants and security forces. Militants and criminals who ride in outboard-engine skiffs operate with near impunity in the shallow and twisting creeks, which the military is prevented from entering by the size of their craft. The militants usually avoid the patrols, and armed engagement is relatively rare.
The militants have stepped up their activities since one of their putative leaders was arrested and charged with treason and terrorism.
The militants say they hope to cripple Nigeria’s oil industry to wring concessions from Yar’Adua’s government. They want more federally controlled oil revenues sent to southern areas, which are impoverished despite the natural bounty.
But criminality and militancy are closely linked, with gunmen stealing crude oil for resale on black markets overseas one day and battling security forces the next.
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