Nigeria rebels say plan car bombings in delta

Nigerian militants said on Wednesday they planned to carry out a series of car bombings and attacks in the oil-producing Niger Delta on Thursday to mark President Umaru Yar'Adua's first year in office.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which has carried out a campaign of sabotage against oil installations over the past two years, said it was issuing the warning to avoid innocent civilians being killed.

"To commemorate the one year of failure by the government of Umaru Yar'Adua, MEND will carry out a string of deadly attacks and car bombings on Thursday in some Niger Delta states," the group said in a statement e-mailed to the media.

"This fore-warning is to ensure that civilians avoid milling around oil pipelines and installations or close to military check-points and vehicles to minimise civilian loss of life." The group is one of several which say they are fighting for local control of oil wealth in the Niger Delta, a network of swampy creeks which is home to Africa's biggest oil industry, pumping more than two million barrels per day.

Pipeline bombings and attacks on industry installations have cut output in the world's eighth biggest oil producer by around a fifth since 2006, helping push oil prices to record highs.

MEND blew up a major Royal Dutch Shell pipeline on Monday, forcing the firm to shut down some production, having carried out similar attacks last month. President Yar'Adua moved swiftly to engage the rebels after taking office on May 29 last year, freeing two jailed militant leaders and drawing up plans for formal talks. But the peace process has made little tangible progress.

In an e-mail to Reuters earlier on Wednesday, MEND said any goodwill that existed after Yar'Adua took office had evaporated after one of its leaders, Henry Okah, was arrested on gun-running and treason charges. "A very simple solution to the crisis is this. Free and allow Henry continue from where he stopped," it said.

Okah, arrested in Angola last September and handed over to Nigeria five months later, stands accused of conspiring to wage war against Nigeria. His trial resumes next month and he faces the death penalty if convicted. MEND said Yar'Adua's government had only freed another ex-militia leader, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, last year because it believed he would be easily malleable as a negotiating partner.

"Everything was going in the right direction until Henry Okah was arrested," MEND said in the email to Reuters. "The divide and rule strategy has failed. It will be a pity if the next one year goes by the same way."