Nigerian militants step up ‘oil war’ with sixth attack

LAGOS (AFP) – Nigeria’s main armed militant group Saturday said it had destroyed a key pipeline run by Royal Dutch Shell in the sixth attack in nearly as many days and vowed to reduce oil exports to “zero”.

Shell reacted by declaring force majeure on its exports from the Bonny terminal to release it from contractual delivery obligations as a result of the latest attacks.


The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta ( MEND ), the main group fighting for a greater share of southern Nigeria’s oil wealth for local people, said it had destroyed the “major pipeline” in Rivers state late Friday.

It said the pipeline was located at Buguma Front in the Asari Toru region and was the latest target of the “oil war” launched earlier this week and nicknamed “Hurricane Barbarossa”.

“The military and the government of Nigeria whose unprovoked attack on our position prompted this oil war are no match for a guerrilla insurgency of this kind,” it said in an email to AFP.

AFP