MEND Say Shell Pipeline 'Destroyed'

A Nigerian rebel group says it has blown up and destroyed a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline in the latest attack in its "oil war" on western firms.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) also said it would soon release two South African hostages it rescued from pirates.

Neither Nigerian authorities nor Shell immediately confirmed the pipeline raid, but MEND has already attacked a Shell flow station since declaring its war on Sunday. It attacked a Chevron facility hours before the declaration.

MEND is the most prominent armed group in the Delta region which says it is fighting for local people to get a greater share of the huge oil revenues. Its campaign over the past five years has already cut Nigeria's oil production by a quarter.

"A major crude oil pipeline at Bakana Front in Degema Local Government Area ... was destroyed with high explosives by MEND detonation engineers backed by heavily-armed fighters," MEND said in an email statement to the media.

Bakana is in Rivers State, the heart of the oil region. The two previous attacks, one on Shell's Alakiri flowstation and the other on a Chevron facility at Robertkiri, are in the same state.

MEND declared an all-out war on the oil industry at the weekend in response to what it said was an unprovoked attack by the Nigerian military on one of its positions on Saturday.

The group said the two South Africans would be freed "at the earliest convenience." The South Africans were among 27 people, also including 22 Nigerians and three people who are British or Ukrainian - it rescued from pirates on Friday.

MEND said it was persuaded to release the two by an appeal from Azuka Okah, wife of Henry Okah, one of the group's leaders detained in secret in the centre of Nigeria.

(AFP)