Nigeria's military sent helicopter gunships and boats Friday to attack a militant camp deep in the swamps of the southern oil region after the area's fighters hijacked a ship and seized 15 Filipinos. Military spokesman Col. Rabe Abubakar said troops in southern Delta State were searching for the hostages kidnapped Thursday by followers of a notorious regional militant leader known as Government Tompolo.
Witnesses, private security personnel and ethnic leaders said the military employed over a dozen gunboats and several helicopters in the attack on Tompolo's camp.
Edwin Clark, a leader of the ethnic Ijaw people who live in the area surrounding the militant camp, said townspeople had fled into the bush as the military fired weapons from the air, water and land. "The military has declared total war on our people," he said.
| That's pretty much what a military does to rebels, a-yup ... |
There was no official confirmation of any casualty figures.
The fighting ended months of relative calm in the southern Niger Delta, where the low-intensity conflict has waxed and waned over three years of rising violence. The militants say they're fighting to force the federal government to send more of the oil revenues it controls to the southern region where the crude is pumped.
The government considers the militants common criminals who use political rhetoric to obscure their real goal, which is the lucrative overseas trade in oil stolen from the region's network of wells and pipelines.
Many Nigerians say elements of the military act in conjunction with the oil thieves, saying it would be impossible for large tankers to pull into Nigerian waters without the knowledge of the security personnel operating in the region.
The militants, also linked to local political leaders who hire them to rig elections, routinely destroy pipelines, attack security forces and kidnap foreign workers, with the targets normally released unharmed after a ransom is paid.
The region remains desperately poor despite five decades of oil flowing from Africa's biggest producer.