Militants seeking a greater share of oil revenues for their impoverished region detonated two car bombs nearly simultaneously Monday in southern Nigeria, the latest in a series of attacks that have cut crude production in Africa’s oil giant by one quarter.
No casualties were reported at either site.
One blast, at a compound belonging to Italian oil firm Agip, blew out windows of a medical facility and cracked compound walls. Agip said the car bomb was parked outside the compound wall and that no injuries were reported.
Residents of a Shell compound hit by the other blast said several cars caught fire.
Both explosions occurred in high-security residential areas around lunchtime, when most employees would be at work. Witnesses reported chaos at the scenes.
”People were running and screaming,” said George Princewill, a motorbike taxi driver. “We didn’t know what was happening. People were running in all different directions.”
THIRD ATTACK HALTED
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta claimed responsibility in an e-mail to reporters, saying the bombs contained a mix of commercial and military-grade explosives and were triggered by mobile phone. A third attack was aborted because many civilians were nearby, it said.
”That bombing was aborted at the very last minute to prevent loss of innocent lives,” the group said. “We haven’t descended that far into the abyss.”
The group gave warning of the bombing 15 minutes before the two devices detonated almost simultaneously. MEND previously claimed responsibility for a car bombing that killed two people at a military barracks in April, and another that targeted an oil refinery in May. But the simultaneous explosions Monday pointed to a much higher level of coordination than many previous militant groups showed.
MEND’s attacks have already cut one quarter of the normal 2.5 million barrels pumped per day in Africa’s largest producer of crude. Much of the Niger Delta oil-pumping infrastructure is away from highly populated areas like Port Harcourt — making it unlikely Monday’s blast would result in large production cuts. Neither Shell nor Agip officials commented on production cuts.
SOFTER TARGETS
Peter Sharwood-Smith, the country operations manager of private security company ArmorGroup Nigeria Ltd., said the attack on residential compounds meant the militants were going after softer targets.
”It is certainly a step up in terms of the violence . . . although if the [e-mail] is true it seems more of a statement of intent than an attempt to kill people,” he said.
Earlier this month, MEND targeted an export terminal belonging to Agip, taking three Italians and a Lebanese man hostage. The group e-mailed photos of the hostages to journalists Monday in which the men looked tired and unshaven, but unharmed. MEND said the pictures were taken Wednesday.