The main militant group in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta warned today it would end its ceasefire and attack military targets in retaliation for the killing by soldiers of a gang leader in the region.
"MEND has decreed today every soldier in uniform inside the Niger Delta region as a fair target," the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in a statement.
"Our first spectacular urban attack on a military patrol will announce the end of the ceasefire."
The Nigerian military said yesterday it had shot and killed a gang leader who spearheaded violent clashes between rival factions over control of a lucrative trade in stolen oil.
Tubotamuno Angolia, also known as "Boy Chiki", was arrested in the Bakana district of Rivers state but was shot when he tried to escape, Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, spokesman for the joint military taskforce in Rivers, said.
MEND rejected that version of events, saying Angolia had been handcuffed, urinated and spat on before being executed. It said Angolia was not a member of MEND, but said such killings by the security forces were becoming "a common practice endorsed by the Nigerian government" in the Niger Delta.
The militant group, which has been holding two British oil workers hostage for four months, began a unilateral ceasefire in the Niger Delta in late September following a week of clashes with the military and attacks on oil industry installations.
MEND's three-year old campaign of violence has cut oil output from Nigeria, the world's eighth biggest exporter, by around a fifth. It has threatened in the past to end its September ceasefire but has so far not launched any significant attacks.