At about 1700 hrs today, Thursday october 4, 2006, our units dispatched to protect communities in rivers state were attacked by 9 gunboats and one helicopter gunship belonging to the nigerian army. \
In the ensueing firefight which lasted about one and a half hours, our units captured 2 gunboats, killing all occupants, 9 soldiers. The remnant of the military assault team was beaten into a retreat and carried back many dead and seriously injured, number of which has yet to be ascertained.
Our prescence in rivers state is being beefed up by about 500 fighters which had earlier been dispatched and will be in rivers state by nightfall. As it seems, we are being forced act ahead of our planned major strike on the nigerian oil industry. Operators of facilities in rivers state are advised to evacuate their staff from such locations with immediate effect. For long, we have advertized that we will no longer take hostages in attacks on oil installations. We will not go back on that pledge.
In addition, we will commence with a number of strategic attacks on targets of relevance. This will commence with effect from today and will increase in severity depending on the response from the nigerian military.