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Nigerian militants bomb Shell pipelines
Militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta region have sabotaged two pipelines belonging to the Dutch oil company, Royal Dutch Shell. The militant Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) say they carried out the attacks in accordance with threats they made earlier this month. “In keeping with our pledge to resume pipeline attacks within the next thirty days, detonation engineers backed by heavily armed fighters… sabotaged two major pipelines in Rivers state of Nigeria,” the group said in an e-mailed statement. Shell’s Nigeria unit confirmed an incident occurred on the Nembe Creek trunk line around the Kula area of Rivers state. The attack is the first since MEND called off a two-week ceasefire after comments by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the G8 summit in Japan. The rebel group say Brown promised military support for what they call the illegal government of Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua. MEND also reacted angrily to revelations by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Managing Director, Abubakar Yar’Adua, that the organization had paid $12 million to militant groups to protect the oil pipelines from further attack. The statement was retracted by NNPC less than 24 hours later. Following the threats Nigerian government forces began “aggressive” patrols of NNPC facilities in the Niger Delta facilities run by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Militant attacks in the Niger Delta area have reduced Nigeria’s oil output by one-fifth of total capacity since early 2006. Despite the large proportion of oil revenues secured by the Nigerian government from foreign oil companies, 70 percent of people living in the Niger Delta region live on less than $1 per day. Many villages also lack electricity and running water. |
Source: PressTV
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