PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (AFP) - Nigeria's army launched an offensive against separatist rebels who have threatened oil installations and workers in the southeast of the country, as the group's leader claimed to have held talks with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Mujahid Dokubo Asari, the leader of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF), told AFP that he had held two-hour long talks with Obasanjo in Abuja.
"We met the president from 3 pm to around 5 pm (1400 GMT to 1600 GMT) and we decided to meet again later in the evening," said Asari.
Asked whether an agreement had been reached on the unrest in the oil-rich delta, he replied: "We did not reach an agreement as such."
However, presidential spokeswoman Oluremi Oyo said she had no knowledge of a meeting between Obasanjo and the rebel leader.
Information Minister Chukwuemeka Chikelu confirmed that Asari had had held talks with Nigerian officials in Abuja, but not with the president.
"Asari Dokubo in particular, and perhaps some other leaders of the Niger Delta have been in Abuja discussing with our security officers and other officers of the state. It is normal," Chikelu told reporters.
Asari's movement, which claims to fight for the interests of ethnic Ijaw people of the Niger Delta, late Monday threatened to destroy oil installations and warned foreigners to quit the region.
Asari later denied the direct threat to multinational oil firms, which have their bases in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State in the southeastern Niger Delta, as the military announced it was sending out round-the-clock patrols.
But the threat of an "all-out war" targeting oil installations in Africa's leading oil-producing country helped to send world oil prices spiralling above 50 dollars per barrel on Wednesday.
In the Niger Delta, the army on Wednesday announced an operation against armed gangs threatening oil installations.
"The Joint Task Force (JTF) has instituted a continuous 24-hour patrol in Port Harcourt (Nigeria's oil city) and its surrounding creeks. There is also a crack team of standby troops to reach any part of the state on short notice," military spokesman Captain Onyema Kanu told AFP.
But he said a full offensive would be launched "only if that will guarantee security of lives and property and fish out the gangsters".
"The government is very alert and we are giving the military assistance to track down this criminal gang and restore peace to the creeks," a spokesman for the Rivers State governor Peter Odili told AFP.
He said that the militant group was not fighting for the Ijaw people but stealing and selling Nigerian crude oil to fuel "massive importation of arms and ammunitions".
Port Harcourt, where two of the nation's four refineries are located, was peaceful Wednesday but the police have mounted checkpoints around the city searching for arms, a state police spokeswoman told AFP.
The military warned Asari and "his like to stop steering internal insurrection in the creeks."
It also urged expatriate oil workers and local citizens to go about their usual business and said troops would "continue to comb the creeks to ... flush out the gangsters."
Asari had told AFP in a telephone interview late Tuesday that he was billed to meet Obasanjo in Abuja Wednesday to discuss his movement's demands.
The conflicting statements over a possible meeting came two weeks after the government sent troops to Port Harcourt and other parts of the delta in the wake of fighting between armed gangs for control of the area's illegal crude oil extraction and smuggling operations.
Nigeria is Africa's leading oil producer, turning out at least 2.3 million barrels per day. Oil accounts for more than 95 percent of the country's foreign exchange earnings.
World oil prices were early Wednesday just above 50 dollars per barrel. The United States is a key client for Nigeria's light, low-sulphur crude, most suitable for refining into petrol.