PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (AFP) - Nigerian troops were combing villages and creeks for illegal arms in the troubled Niger Delta, where rebels have threatened the oil industry, a military spokesman said.
"We have intensified cordon and search operations in the swamps, villages and creeks. Our efforts have paid off," naval Lieutenant Commander Yakubu Agwom told AFP by telephone from his base in Buguma, west of Port Harcourt, the hub of Nigeria's vast oil resources.
Buguma is the home town of rebel leader Mujahid Dokubo Asari, who is fighting for a share of Nigeria's oil wealth and who arrived in the capital Abuja Wednesday for peace talks with government officials.
Agwon said security men raided a village near Buguma early this week and found some weapons.
"A cache of arms and ammunitions such as AK-47 rifles were found in the village. Although the villagers claimed the weapons were for self-defence against attack by armed gangs terrorising them, they cooperated with security agents by surrendering them," he said.
He said ethnic militia and cult gangs such as Dey Gbam, Greenlanders, Egbesu Boys, Bush Boys, Icelanders, Elegamface and Okrika Boys were stockpiling arms to fight for supremacy in the region.
The spokesman of the special military Joint Task Force (JTF) deployed to the troubled areas, Captain Onyema Kanu, said that current operation coded "Operation Flush Out 3", will continue despite ongoing talks between President Olusegun Obasanjo and rebel leader Mujahid Dokubo Asari.
"The JTF has a clear and broad mandate to rid the region of armed gang violence and bunkering. The operation will continue in spite of the talks unless we are otherwise directed," he told reporters in Port Harcourt.
The armed struggle is financed by illegal bunkering -- stealing of crude oil from tapped pipelines before selling it to unscrupulous local and foreign buyers.
Officials say Nigeria loses some 50,000 barrels of oil daily to smugglers and sea pirates operating in the hundreds of creeks and swamps dotting the Niger delta.
Some 500 people have died in gang violence in the past month in Port Harcourt and its surrounding creeks, according to Amnesty International, but the government said only 13 were killed.
Rivers State governor Peter Odili was expected to address a mass rally Friday during which he would attempt to douse the tensions arising from the fighting, his spokesman, Emmanuel Okah, said.
The rally has organized to mark Nigeria's 44th independence anniversary.
Asari's Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF), which late Monday threatened oil installations and asked foreign oil workers to quit the region, is one of the militias fighting for supremacy over control of the west African country's illegal oil trafficking in the area.
The group claims to be fighting for the rights of the ethnic Ijaws living around the centre of Nigeria's oil industry, which turns out about 2.3 million barrels per day.
Nigeria, Africa's largest oil exporter, derives more than 95 percent of its foreign exchange revenue from oil extracted from the Delta region.
The unrest in Nigeria has sent jitters to the international oil market where a barrel is hovering around 50 dollars.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo warned Friday that his government would not tolerate any act of "undue militancy" in the Niger Delta.
"Government is taking appropriate steps to stem the tide of undue militancy and we are confident that reason and the law will prevail," he said in a broadcast to mark the anniversary of independence from Britain.
"Government will not tolerate in any way or form any act that would mortgage or compromise the interest of the majority."
On Friday, the presence of troops was very visible in Port Harcourt but there was little or no celebration for the independence anniversary.