Rebels in Nigeria threaten China over oil

JOHANNESBURG, S. Africa — Militants in Nigeria's volatile oil-producing region detonated a car bomb over the weekend and issued a warning that investors and officials from China would be "treated as thieves" and targeted in future attacks.

The threat came as Chinese President Hu Jintao returned home from a tour of Africa in which he reached a series of deals securing access to oil and other resources to meet the needs of China's booming economy. On Wednesday, Hu and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo signed several major business deals, including one that offers China four oil-exploration licenses.

A spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in an e-mail sent to news organizations that the attack was "the final warning" before the militants turned their attention to oil workers, storage facilities, bridges, offices and other "soft oil industry targets."

In a second e-mail, the spokesman, who uses the pseudonym Jomo Gbomo, criticized the Chinese, who last year took a $2.2 billion stake in an oil field in the Niger Delta. Nigeria is a major oil exporter and the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the U.S.

"We wish to warn the Chinese government and its oil companies to steer well clear of the Niger Delta," Gbomo wrote. "Chinese citizens found in oil installations will be treated as thieves. The Chinese government by investing in stolen crude places its citizens in our line of fire."

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has asserted responsibility for other violence in the region, including attacks on oil facilities and the kidnapping this year of several foreign-born oil workers, all of whom have been released unharmed.

Gbomo said in the e-mail that the explosion Saturday night, which took place in the southern Nigerian city of Warri, was activated by a cellphone. Details remained sketchy, although no deaths were immediately reported. A car bombing on April 19 for which the groups asserted responsibility killed two people.

The Niger Delta has been a source of unrest for decades. Most residents live in intense poverty, while oil facilities in the area earn billions of dollars for foreign companies and the Nigerian government.