For the past 13 days the Nigerian military has been mounting an offensive in the swampy creeks of the Niger Delta, pursuing oil militants who kidnapped 15 sailors, 18 soldiers and hijacked a petrol tanker belonging to the national oil company.

They say the continuing military action is an attempt to rescue their men or confirm if they are dead.

The militants started it, they say, and the military is just reacting, according to commander Gen Sarkin Yakin Bello, whose name means “lord of fighting” in the northern Hausa language.

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By Gilbert da Costa
Abuja

Some of Niger Delta’s prominent groups and ethnic leaders have called for urgent talks with the government to end the military’s ongoing operations in the region. Rights groups say the army’s indiscriminate bombing of villages in the oil-producing Niger Delta has created a humanitarian crisis.

The Nigerian military says troops will continue their search of the creeks of the Niger Delta to flush out militants whose criminal activities have hurt the country’s oil production.

An army spokesman in the delta, Colonel Rabe Abubakar, says the military will continue securing the region and dismissed any talk of a so-called cease-fire.

“I am not aware of any cease-fire,” he said. “We are a military people. We are not at war. It is only when you are at war that you begin to ask for cease-fire. You are just conducting an operation which will assist you in recovery or rescuing some of the foreign nationals who were taken hostage by the militants. The operation is only targeting the militants, not any other person - the militants and their hideouts.”
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A Nigerian navy patrol has intercepted an attempted attack on an offshore oil facility in the Niger Delta. It is the latest in an ongoing battle which is said to have nearly halved the country’s vital oil production. On Monday, rebel fighters successfully put a major oil storage facility out of action. But in addition to the economic cost, Amnesty International says hundreds of civilians are being killed in the violence. Al Jazeera’s Tarek Bazley reports.

The Anglo-Dutch petrochemicals giant will be accused of asking Nigeria’s military dictatorship to silence Mr Saro-Wiwa and other activists campaigning against ecological damage allegedly brought about by oil extraction.

Mr Saro-Wiwa and eight other campaigners were executed by hanging in November 1995 after being found guilty of what were widely seen as trumped up murder charges.

If found liable, Shell would be forced to pay damages that amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.

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The Nigerian military has been accused of killing hundreds, maybe thousands, of civilians in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The military offensive began eight days ago but has received little international attention. We go to Nigeria to speak with Denzil Amagbe Kentebe of the Ijaw National Congress. We’re also joined by Sandy Cioffi, director of the new documentary Sweet Crude about the Niger Delta. The village of Oporoza, where much of the film was shot, has just been burned down.

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By PATRICIA COHEN (NYT)

“I had a surprising call this week,” the author Richard North Patterson told the audience that had gathered last weekend as part of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. It was former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Patterson’s new novel, “Eclipse,” is based on the case of the Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Mr. Clinton spoke of a phone call he had made 14 years ago to Gen. Sani Abacha of Nigeria, asking him to spare Mr. Saro-Wiwa from the hangman.

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The Wiwa vs Shell case is scheduled for trial on May 26th, 2009 in federal court in New York City.