Raids launched on MEND hideouts

A Nigerian general has pledged to "break the will" of armed groups responsible for a week-long campaign of sabotage against the oil industry in the Niger Delta by launching more raids on their hideouts.

The delta saw the most severe sequence of attacks against the oil industry since early 2006 last week when militants strafed army posts and blew up pipelines in retaliation for a raid the military conducted on one of their camps on September 13. Armed groups say their goal is to shut-in all of Nigeria's oil exports.

The government is not close to responding to the demands of the rebels, which include a more equitable distribution of the country's oil wealth, compensation for decades of oil pollution and the release of a top militant.

Some militants are also pushing for autonomy for the oil-rich region, or possibly an outright secession.

The government says MEND and its affiliates are criminal gangs, motivated by profits such as ransoms and the stealing of crude.

The lines between militancy and crime are blurred in the Delta, a vast wetlands in the south of Nigeria that is home to the entire OPEC member nation's oil wealth.

The raid - launched using gunboats and helicopters - appeared to signal a more robust approach by the army in Rivers State, one of the main oil- and gas-producing states in Nigeria, raising fears of a wider conflagration in the region.

Security sources estimated dozens of people were killed during the fighting in Rivers last week, although casualty figures were impossible to verify. The rise in attacks forced Royal Dutch Shell to warn that it might not be able to meet some export commitments. Shell's facilities in Rivers, in the eastern Niger Delta, have become increasingly important to its overall production in Nigeria following the surge in violence in early 2006 that shut down much of its operations in the western delta.

Umaru Yar'Adua, Nigerian president, signalled his intention to take a more conciliatory approach than his predecessors to ending the insurgency when he came to power in May last year. But as his plan to hold a peace summit for the region foundered, military and political leaders in the energy-exporting states of Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa adopted their own, divergent strategies.

The governors of Bayelsa and Delta have enjoyed far greater calm by seeking dialogue with armed groups. But critics say they have only succeeded in buying a temporary peace by handing out cash to gunmen.

Officers in the JTF say privately that a temporary increase in attacks of the kind witnessed last week would be a price worth paying to deal a decisive blow.

An internal report prepared in July last year by the commander of military forces in Delta State warned the military risked suffering a defeat that could embolden the militants further if it launched a big offensive against their camps.

Nigeria's state oil company has reported a drop in production of 280,000 barrels per day since MEND launched what it described as an oil war in the Delta. The group declared a conditional cease-fire on Sunday.

Author: Jo Amey