The Ongoing Niger Delta Militant Threat

Stratfor.com

18 March 2011

The Ongoing Niger Delta Militant Threat

Summary

Government officials, Niger Delta politicians and former top delta militant commanders all called on the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) to rescind its recent threat of attacks. Though MEND has been diminished by previous government security actions and by its loss of political patronage, elements of the group still have the potential to carry out attacks in the oil-rich delta despite the government’s continued efforts to squelch it.

Analysis

Nigerian government officials, Niger Delta politicians and former top commanders of the Nigerian militant group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) on March 17 called on the group to cancel its threat of further attacks. The call came one day after MEND claimed responsibility for the dynamiting of a Agip-operated pipeline flow station in the Niger Delta at Clough Creek, located in the Southern Ijaw Local Government Area southwest of the Bayelsa state capital, Yenagoa.

Though the combined political and security forces brought to bear on MEND elements will keep militant attacks isolated, they will not eliminate them entirely...