Suspected militants abduct police chief's wife in Nigeria

Gunmen suspected to be militants have abducted the wife of a senior Nigeria police officer, as the woman was conveying her children to school in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers state in the restive, oil-producing Niger Delta region, police said.

According to Rivers Police Spokesperson Ireju Barasua, the incident happened Tuesday at the Mile 4 area of the volatile city.

The gunmen had blocked the car in which the wife and children of the unnamed Assistant Commissioner of Police were being ferried to the children's school, shooting sporadically to scare away people.

As motorists and pedestrians fled in different directions, the men dragged out the occupants of the car and pushed them into their sports utility vehicle before speeding away towards the East-West road, where they abandoned the children.

The police chief was not identified beyond the fact that he is currently serving at the Anambra police command in South-east Nigeria.

Abductions, attack on vessels as well as oil facilities have recently been on the rise in the Niger Delta, as militants stepped up their armed campaign for a better deal for the oil producing region.

The region's largest militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), has vowed to cripple Nigeria's oil export this year.

MEND has so far claimed responsibility for a series of attacks, including those on oil vessels and fuel tankers, this year.

Niger Delta rebels must unite, cripple oil sector: MEND

LAGOS (AFP) — A leading armed group in southern Nigeria called on all the regiona's militants Monday to band together and cripple oil production in Nigeria.

"We call on all genuine militant groups to unite and cripple the oil industry in Nigeria once and for all," the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said.

"The time has come for all breakaway factions to come together and wage war of a different kind in 2008," it said in an email.

MEND said it supported the decision announced Friday by another leading armed group, Ijaw Youth, to pull out of negotiations with the government.

"MEND has long suspected the insincerity of the Nigerian government, the military, and oil majors along with their collaborators," it said.

It said its doubts had been confirmed by a secret memo leaked from army headquarters laying out plans for attacking armed groups "while at the same time pretending to talk peace".

Government officials were not immediately available to comment on the group's threats or its allegations of duplicity.

Nigerian military reports clash with militants near Shell gas plant

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria: Nigerian troops clashed early on Sunday with armed militants in the Niger Delta oil region near a natural gas facility run by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, a military official said.

The latest encounter between troops and militants in rising violence in the troubled region occurred in Soku, in the southern swamps of Rivers state, where Shell runs a natural gas gathering facility, military spokesman Maj. Sagir Musa said. No details were yet available on casualties or the impact of the clash on oil and gas operations, he said.

Facilities run by Shell and other oil multinationals working in Nigeria have come under renewed attack since the leading militant group in the delta region ended a self-imposed cease-fire in September. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, accuses President Umaru Yar'Adua's government of being behind the arrest of one of its leaders, Henry Okah, on gunrunning charges in Angola.

Attacks by MEND and other armed groups in the oil-rich but impoverished delta in the past two years have cut Nigeria's oil exports of 2.5 million barrels a day by more than 20 percent and added pressure to global oil prices. More than 200 foreign oil workers have also been kidnapped during the same period, with most of them released unharmed.

Nigeria is Africa's leading oil exporter and the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports.