Military houseboat attacked

Armed militants attacked a military houseboat stationed outside of a Royal Dutch Shell oil facility in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta region on 13 April 2009. Initial reports indicate that the gunmen used as many as 18 speedboats to gain access to the facility. The gunmen reportedly commandeered a naval vessel, killed one sailor and injured four others during the attack. The Defender-class naval vessel that the militants stole is a small craft that the Nigerian military uses to patrol the Niger Delta's vast network of creeks. Nigeria's main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), stated that it was not directly involved in the incident, but had information suggesting that the violence was a retaliatory attack by youths angered by an earlier military raid on their community. Shell authorities stated that the attack did not affect the facility's output.