Militants said today that the Nigerian military botched a rescue mission aimed at liberating two British hostages held captive in Nigeria’s restive southern oil region.

NIGERIA’S main militant group declared a ceasefire in the southern oil region yesterday, ending the worst spate of militant attacks in years to hit Africa’s oil giant.

A GENERAL strike gripped Nigeria yesterday, posing the first significant test for the country’s new president and putting oil markets on edge over supplies from one of the world’s top crude exporters.

Gunmen seized four more foreign workers amid a dramatic rise in violence that has rocked Nigeria’s southern petroleum-producing region, oil industry officials said today.

Gunmen kidnapped five Chinese workers who were fixing overhead telephone lines in southern Nigeria, officials said.

Militants in Nigeria have freed seven foreign oil workers seized during an attack earlier this month on an ExxonMobil compound, a spokesman for the company said today.

All six kidnapped British oil workers in Nigeria have been released, it was announced today.

Nigerian militants have released six foreign oil workers they deemed “low value”, but held on to two Americans and one Briton and threatened crippling new attacks aimed at cutting off all oil production in Nigeria.

Militants holding nine foreign oil workers hostage in Nigeria released one in the presence of reporters today, handing over a diabetic 69-year-old American after nearly two weeks in aptivity.

Insurgents in Nigeria’s southern Niger Delta will begin “a full-scale armed struggle” to wrest control of the region’s oil riches from the government on Friday, a rebel spokesman said today.

STRIKING Nigerian oil workers will release hundreds of hostages they’ve held for weeks aboard rigs off the West African nation’s shore, negotiators said yesterday.

Striking Nigerian workers will release hundreds of hostages they have been holding on oil rigs off the west African nation’s shore, negotiators said tonight