Terrorism Monitor has the details on the latest MEND operation in Nigeria:
"Niger Delta militants in speedboats launched a devastating attack on Nigeria’s rapidly decaying energy infrastructure on July 13 by seizing and destroying a major oil distribution point in Lagos, a city of 16 million people. The assault was the first time militants from the Delta region have struck Nigeria’s largest city. ...An assault group from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) struck the Atlas Cove Jetty during the night, killing a number of sailors guarding the facility before driving away the rest. Dynamite charges were placed on ten pipelines at the terminal and the resulting explosion was heard throughout the city. The attackers returned to base without apparent intervention from the Joint Task Force (JTF), a hybrid security force detailed with eliminating the insurgency in the oil-rich Delta. The attack came only hours before the release of imprisoned MEND leader Henry Okah under a new Nigerian amnesty program."
Jeff Vail has some interesting thoughts about the campaign as a whole:
"MEND fractioned amidst infighting among Ijaw tribal alliances. Various factions, with various political agendas, neutralized the ability to push for peace through negotiations—there was no single party, nor accession to a single set of demands, that could defuse the motivation to violence. In addition, the ransom money that foreign oil companies now routinely paid for the return of western employees spawned a market for guerrilla entrepreneurs—actors who were less motivated by traditional Ijaw political goals than by a return on investment. The lure of easy money has led to a proliferation of militant groups (now perhaps best characterized as criminal gangs) and a dramatic increase in attacks. This infusion of easy money to youthful militants broke down the traditional tribal structure of respect for leadership by elders—much as the infusion of easy drug money makes urban street gangs in the US less accountable to traditional cultural and familial restraints."
The link to street gangs here is rather important, especially given that the attackers struck after Okah was released as part of an amnesty program. The Terrorism Monitor story notes that one faction has named "fugitive militant leader and tribal chief Government Ekpemupolo (a.k.a. Tompolo)" perpetrator of the attack. Some suspect that Tompolo, a warlord with his own elaborate military base, worked a "protection racket" as an security adviser to various foreign oil firms.
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