Nigeria: The Bad Guys Win

From Strategy Page:

December 15, 2008: The oil companies in the Niger River Delta, despite hiring thousands of security guards, are still suffering attacks on their boats and having foreign workers kidnapped. There are several attacks a week, and one or two foreign oil workers is kidnapped for ransom each week. The oil stealing gangs are growing in size, and that means more young men moving about the Delta in speedboats, armed with AK-47s, machine-guns and RPGs. These guys are poorly trained as fighters, but believe their own PR and are fearless, at least initially, when they run into military or police patrol boats (which usually have more, and larger caliber, machine-guns, and personnel better trained to use them.) The surviving gang members will usually get away, but will not be discouraged. This aggressive attitude makes it difficult for the security forces to control the gangs, who are also very popular with the local population because the gangs spread their millions around, and hire locally. Many of the military personnel are from other parts of the country.

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