MEND threatens anti- Islam attack.

MEND threatens anti-
Islam attack.


MEND, operating from
Nigeria’s south, says it
will attack Muslims to
protect Christians in
Nigeria.


Starting May 31, Nigeria’s
oil militant group,
Movement for the
Emancipation of the Niger Delta said it will target mosques and Islamic institutions, in a new terror campaign, “in
defence of Christianity.”
Operating from oil rich
Niger Delta creeks, MEND is
Nigeria’s foremost
collection of terror gangs
united by a struggle to
control the region’s oil
wealth, and criminality.
The group issued its
newest threat just a week
after it claimed
responsibility for the
killing of 12 police officers
in the southern Bayelsa
state.
“The bombings of
mosques, haj camps,
Islamic institutions, large
congregations in Islamic
events and assassinations
of clerics that propagate
doctrines of hate will form
the core mission of this
crusade,” MEND
spokesman Jomo Gbomo
said in an e-mailed
statement on Sunday.
The campaign is
codenamed “Operation
Barbarossa,” Mr Gbomo,
thought to be pseudonym,
said.
MEND says Barbarossa will
not in any way interfere
with the ongoing
“Hurricane Exodus” –
which killed the police
officers and “on Saturday,
April 13, 2013, at about
01:00 Hrs, swept through
the Ewellesuo community,
Nembe, Bayelsa State,
leaving the destruction of
Well 62, belonging to Shell
Petroleum in its wake.”
Precious Okolobo, a Lagos-
based spokesman for
Shell’s Nigerian unit, told
Bloomberg he couldn’t
confirm the Saturday
attack Well 62.
MEND announced early
this month it resumed
attacks in Nigeria after
Henry Okah, its leader, was
sentenced last month to
24 years in prison in South
Africa. Mr. Okar was found
guilty of 13 counts of
terrorism, including a
bombing claimed by MEND
in which 12 people died in
Abuja on Oct. 1, 2010.
Ceasefire
MEND agrees with Boko
Haram’s attacks targeted
at Nigerian security agents
– “including the prisons,
for their role in
extrajudicial killings,
torture, deceit and
corruption” – but said
Boko Haram’s attacks on
Christians are not
acceptable.
MEND says it will consider
abandoning the operation
if the Christian Association
of Nigeria (CAN), the
Catholic Church and Henry
Okah, “one of the few
leaders in the Niger Delta
region we respect for his
integrity”, intervenes.
“Also the assurance for a
cessation of hostilities
targeted at Christians in
their places of worship,
made privately or publicly
by the real Boko Haram
leadership will make us
call off this crusade,” Mr.
Gbomo added.
While MEND operates as
the major terror gang in
Nigeria’s south – especially
oil rich Niger Delta areas,
including Lagos – Boko
Haram operates largely in
NIgeria’s north, targeting
security agencies,
Christians, opposition
Islamic clerics, foreigners
and other perceived
enemies.
Both groups are Nigeria’s
largest terror gangs. While
MEND – triggered by fight
for economic justice –
partially accepted amnesty
in 2009, the government
is currently persuading
Boko Haram – a terror
gang whose self-professed
motive is the islamization
of northern Nigeria, to do
same. -CULLED FROM PREMIUM TIMES