Nigeria's armed group claims it destroyed refinery pipeline

Nigeria's most prominent armed group MEND said on Tuesday it had attacked and destroyed an oil pipeline feeding a refinery in the restive oil-rich Niger Delta region.

"On Sunday, Nov 21, 2010, at about 0200, fighters of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta attacked and destroyed the Obidi-Refinery trunk line," the group said in a e-mail statement to the media.

MEND said the pipeline transported crude oil to the refinery in Warri in southern Delta State.

A spokesman for the joint military task force in the region did not confirm the claim. "We are not aware of any attack," Colonel Timothy Antigha told AFP.