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Nigerian army stops raid on oil facility
Nigerian troops have repelled a raid by armed militants on an oil-pumping station run by the local unit of Italy's Eni SpA, killing three attackers. Soldiers guarding the Tebidaba facility of the Nigeria Agip Oil Company Ltd. fought attackers who came in speedboats yesterday, capturing four injured militants, said Colonel Rabe Abubakar, a spokesman for the military task force in charge of security in the oil region. Attacks by armed groups in the southern delta, which produces almost all of Nigeria's oil, have cut its crude exports by more than 20 percent since 2006. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the main armed group fighting in the region, said its fighters were not involved in the Tebidaba incident as it was still abiding by its September unilateral cease-fire. "Whenever hostilities resume, we will take responsibility for any attack we carry out," Jomo Gbomo, spokesman for the group known as MEND, said in an e-mail today. The militant group says it is fighting for the poor of the Niger Delta, who are yet to share in the oil wealth pumped from their region. Nigeria's Niger Delta region, generating huge oil wealth, which is in contrast to the impoverished life of local people, has drawn worldwide attention in 2008 with rampant sabotage on oil facilities and kidnapping. Posted by: Fred 2008-12-28 |
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