Brit Taken Hostage

A group of five gunmen have kidnapped a British national in southern Nigeria, reports say.

The hostage, a former employee of the petrochemicals firm Indo Rama, was seized late on Monday in Port Harcourt, sources said.

No group has yet claimed responsibility.

More than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta, the heart of the country's oil sector, since early 2006.

Almost all have been released unharmed.

A spokesman for the British Foreign Office told Sky News officials were investigating the report, but could not give further details.

It came as militants launched assaults on two oil installations in the delta in the heaviest fighting there in two years.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), responsible for attacks that have cut a fifth of the OPEC member's output since early 2006, attacked a Royal Dutch Shell oil pipeline and Chevron-operated oilfield.

A spokesman for the group said: "A major crude oil pipeline... belonging to the Shell Petroleum Development Company was destroyed with high explosives."

A Shell spokesman confirmed the attack to the AFP news agency.

"We can confirm that a section of the Greater Port Harcourt Swamp Line at Bakana, Rivers State, was attacked last night (September 15)," Precious Okolobo said.

Some security sources in the oil industry estimate more than 100 people may have been killed by the clashes, which have spread to at least seven villages in the state of Rivers.

The military says militants have incurred "heavy losses", but declined to elaborate.
MEND says at least 29 people, most of them soldiers, have died.

Militants have bombed pipelines, platforms, gas plants and oilfields, shutting up to 115,000 barrels per day of oil production in the last four days, government officials said.

(Sky News)