Nigeria militants blow up army houseboat, pipeline

LAGOS, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Nigerian militants who have kidnapped nine foreign oil workers said they had blown up a military houseboat and an oil pipeline manifold on Monday, the latest attacks in a campaign that has cut exports by a fifth.

In an e-mail, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta also threatened to attack any vessel trying to use Royal Dutch Shell's 340,000 barrel-per-day Forcados oil export platform, which the group bombed on Saturday.

"Patrol units ... carried out attacks on one houseboat belonging to the Nigerian army and the Shell Ughelli Odidi-Escravos manifold. Both were destroyed with explosives," the militants said, adding that the soldiers in the houseboat fled before it was destroyed.

The militants said that Shell was planning to use one manifold on the Forcados export platformwhich was not damaged in Saturday's attack to export oil.

"Regardless of whatever security arrangements they depend on and time of the day, we will attack this vessel and execute everyone on board. It is needless to say what will happen to the surviving manifold in the next few hours," they said.

One of the their beefs -

'Nigerian militants' of the 'Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND)' are demading the release of the Ijaw leader, Alh Dokubo Asari, aka MUJAHID Dokubo-Asari, of the 'Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force.'

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19167008.htm

An interview with him here -

http://allafrica.com/stories/200507290721.html

Many readers may believe that your becoming Muslim has to do with the cause of the Niger Delta. To what extent is that true?

I will not say it has to do with the cause of the Niger Delta. As an individual, I wanted to serve God and to know him but there was a contradiction. I was not ready to turn the other cheek and I became a Muslim. I was not ready to believe that all authority is from God and we must be submissive to that authority. The only religion I saw that is suitable to my nature is Islam. It is only Islam that says we must resist evil wherever we find it. The prophet Mohammed said and I quote: "When you see evil in the land, you must resist it with your hand, you must speak against it with your tongue or you must hate it with your heart." That is the weakest of it. Mohammed also said: "The best thing to do to a tyrant ruler is to speak the words of truth." So that is it. Islam has helped me in my agitation because Islam accepts my role as somebody who should correct the ills of society and the fight against oppression even with my life.

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