Militants Hit Oil Facilities

Militants Hit Oil Facilities, MEND Claims Responsibility

FIGHTERS of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) have dealt some fatal blows on oil facilities in the volatile oil and gas region.

Spokesman for the insurgent group, Jomo Gbomo, in an on-line statement to opur correspondent yesterday, said they have taken responsibility for the attack on the oil installations.

According to him, ''at about 02:00 hours on Monday, May 25, 2009,our fighters destroyed major trunk lines to effectively put the under-listed flow stations that feed the Chevron tank farm located in Delta state of Nigeria out of operation. The affected flow stations are:

Chevron (at Alero creek), Otunana, Abiteye, Makaraba, and Dibi''.

Continuing, the MEND spokesman said, ''we borrowed a leaf from the Federal Government of Nigeria by applying the same measure of treatment the impoverished oil bearing communities suffered in the hands of government troops by ensuring huge collateral damage. This will henceforth become our standard mode of operation''.

The statement claimed that all their fighters returned safely to Camp 5 annex, adding, ''the Joint Task Force (JTF) has been chasing shadows for the past two weeks and has not achieved any military success. We will continue our cat and mouse tactics with them until oil export ceases completely''.

They alleged that the JTF, a special security outfit, did not free the remaining three hostages as being claimed. ''As promised, we dropped them off at the Oporoza jetty'', MEND claimed.

ENDS

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