Nine killed in attack on oil company in Nigeria
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Eight policemen and one civilian were killed on Tuesday when an armed gang in military fatigues attacked the offices of the Italian oil company Agip in Nigeria and robbed a bank.
It was not clear if the attack, in the southern city of Port Harcourt, was carried out by the same group that has kidnapped four foreign oil workers and crippled Nigerian oil output by a tenth during a month-long campaign of violence in the world's eighth largest exporter.
"An armed gang in military attire attacked the Agip offices," a security source said.
"The armed gang exchanged fire with the local security forces and made their way to a banking facility which is located on the base," Agip's parent company, ENI, said in a statement from Italy.
The group of 20 to 30 men, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, arrived at the company's compound in two speedboats and engaged police in a gun battle.
A Reuters witness who arrived at the scene shortly after the gunfight saw the bodies of eight police and one civilian being loaded into ambulances. Other people were injured.
The company confirmed the nine deaths and said it had "temporarily evacuated staff and contractors from the area of the base affected by the incident and the situation is currently under control".
The raid on Agip took place at a time of heightened alert among Western multinationals in the Niger Delta, which produces most of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels of oil a day.
Militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), who abducted the workers and attacked two oil pipelines and two platforms, have threatened more attacks on the industry. Output is already down by 221,000 barrels a day.
Asked about the attack in Port Harcourt, the movement said in an email response to Reuters that it was checking with its units in the area, but it had not planned any such action.
"All our units have been specifically instructed not to attack banks yet. When we do, it will not be for financial gain," the group said.
SUSPECTED ACCOMPLICES
Nigeria's secret service said it arrested a leader of the movement on Tuesday, a day after detaining two suspected accomplices of the kidnappers, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the 13-day-old hostage crisis.
"We have arrested the secretary-general of MEND. We are making headway right now," said State Security Service director Adebayo Babalola.
Government officials have expressed confidence the captives will be released soon as negotiations progress on a ransom payment with someone they believe to be a credible representative of the kidnappers.
However, the militants have said they are not in talks to release their American, British, Honduran and Bulgarian captives and have denounced the negotiators as bounty hunters. They have made political demands, including the release of two ethnic Ijaw leaders.
"The hostages are going nowhere!" the group said in an email on Tuesday.
An Ijaw activist said the previously unknown movement contained two different groups: a politicised faction carrying out the attacks on oil installations and a more commercially minded gang holding the hostages.
Nine days after its last confirmed raid, the group has repeated threats to broaden its attacks on oil workers and installations across the delta. Dozens of people have already been killed in a campaign that helped push world oil prices to four-month highs last week.
Shell has evacuated about 500 workers, hundreds more contractors have left and unions have threatened to withdraw completely from the delta if security deteriorates.
The militant group said it was preparing for an assault by the Nigerian army and had moved the four hostages deeper inside the delta's maze of mangrove swamps for their own safety.
It reiterated that it would keep the hostages until it won the release of two high-profile Ijaw prisoners: militia chief Mujahid Dukubo-Asari and former Bayelsa state governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, impeached for money laundering last month.
It is also seeking $1.5 billion from Shell to be paid to delta villages in compensation for oil spills.
(Additional reporting by Tom Ashby and Tume Ahemba in Lagos, Daniel Flynn in Abuja)
It was not clear if the attack, in the southern city of Port Harcourt, was carried out by the same group that has kidnapped four foreign oil workers and crippled Nigerian oil output by a tenth during a month-long campaign of violence in the world's eighth largest exporter.
"An armed gang in military attire attacked the Agip offices," a security source said.
"The armed gang exchanged fire with the local security forces and made their way to a banking facility which is located on the base," Agip's parent company, ENI
The group of 20 to 30 men, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, arrived at the company's compound in two speedboats and engaged police in a gun battle.
A Reuters witness who arrived at the scene shortly after the gunfight saw the bodies of eight police and one civilian being loaded into ambulances. Other people were injured.
The company confirmed the nine deaths and said it had "temporarily evacuated staff and contractors from the area of the base affected by the incident and the situation is currently under control".
The raid on Agip took place at a time of heightened alert among Western multinationals in the Niger Delta, which produces most of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels of oil a day.
Militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), who abducted the workers and attacked two oil pipelines and two platforms, have threatened more attacks on the industry. Output is already down by 221,000 barrels a day.
Asked about the attack in Port Harcourt, the movement said in an email response to Reuters that it was checking with its units in the area, but it had not planned any such action.
"All our units have been specifically instructed not to attack banks yet. When we do, it will not be for financial gain," the group said.
SUSPECTED ACCOMPLICES
Nigeria's secret service said it arrested a leader of the movement on Tuesday, a day after detaining two suspected accomplices of the kidnappers, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the 13-day-old hostage crisis.
"We have arrested the secretary-general of MEND. We are making headway right now," said State Security Service director Adebayo Babalola.
Government officials have expressed confidence the captives will be released soon as negotiations progress on a ransom payment with someone they believe to be a credible representative of the kidnappers.
However, the militants have said they are not in talks to release their American, British, Honduran and Bulgarian captives and have denounced the negotiators as bounty hunters. They have made political demands, including the release of two ethnic Ijaw leaders.
"The hostages are going nowhere!" the group said in an email on Tuesday.
An Ijaw activist said the previously unknown movement contained two different groups: a politicised faction carrying out the attacks on oil installations and a more commercially minded gang holding the hostages.
Nine days after its last confirmed raid, the group has repeated threats to broaden its attacks on oil workers and installations across the delta. Dozens of people have already been killed in a campaign that helped push world oil prices to four-month highs last week.
Shell has evacuated about 500 workers, hundreds more contractors have left and unions have threatened to withdraw completely from the delta if security deteriorates.
The militant group said it was preparing for an assault by the Nigerian army and had moved the four hostages deeper inside the delta's maze of mangrove swamps for their own safety.
It reiterated that it would keep the hostages until it won the release of two high-profile Ijaw prisoners: militia chief Mujahid Dukubo-Asari and former Bayelsa state governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, impeached for money laundering last month.
It is also seeking $1.5 billion from Shell to be paid to delta villages in compensation for oil spills.
(Additional reporting by Tom Ashby and Tume Ahemba in Lagos, Daniel Flynn in Abuja)
posted by Marko at 1/24/2006 06:53:00 PM
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