The fighting in the Niger Delta is winding down now according to Reuters reporting:
By Austin Ekeinde
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian security forces said on Saturday they rescued 10 hostages kidnapped this week, including six foreigners, and destroyed a key militant camp in the heart of Africa's biggest oil industry region.
Nigeria's main militant group has declared an "all-out war" and warned oil companies to evacuate their staff in the Niger Delta following three days of heavy clashes with the military.
The army said its forces, using navy gunboats and helicopters, would continue its offensive to flush militants out of the creeks after the hijacking of two oil vessels and attacks on their troops in southern Delta state.
"We will carry on with our operations until we stabilize the situation," said Colonel Rabe Abubakar, spokesman for the military taskforce in the Niger Delta, adding that two soldiers have been wounded in this week's fighting.
Global crude oil markets have largely ignored the clashes in the OPEC member country, closing lower in two of the last three sessions.
Royal Dutch Shell, U.S. oil major Chevron and other energy companies working in the area were given until Saturday to remove their workers.
Security sources have said they are taking the militant threats seriously but there are no plans to evacuate more staff.
The military on Friday freed six Filipinos and four Nigerians that were kidnapped two days earlier when their oil vessel MV Spirit was hijacked by militants near Warri in Delta state, Abubakar said.
A total of 22 people were believed to have been on board the ship chartered by state oil firm NNPC. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said one of the hostages had been killed by a stray bullet on Friday.
CAMP 5
The heavy fighting has centred around a camp belonging to militant leader Government Tompolo who had been involved in negotiations over a possible amnesty with the authorities.
Abubakar said the camp, located along Chanomi Creek in Delta state near Chevron's Escravos export terminal and Nigeria's 125,000 barrels per day Warri refinery, was largely destroyed on Friday in the heaviest fighting in the area in eight months.
"I'm glad to inform you that our search-and-rescue operation conducted in the Chanomi Creek yesterday led to the total destruction of the notorious Camp 5," he said.
Attacks by MEND have cut Nigeria's oil output by about a fifth since early 2006, forced foreign firms to remove all but essential staff and eaten into the country's foreign earnings, exacerbating the impact of the global downturn.
But security experts say the group is smarting from a more muscular military stance in the Niger Delta, while oil bunkering -- the theft of industrial quantities of crude oil and a major income stream for militant groups and criminal gangs -- has become less profitable with lower global energy prices.