5 foreigners kidnapped in Nigeria

Gunmen abducted five foreigners Friday in Nigeria's restive southern oil heartland, with at least three of them seized and spirited away in a speedboat, officials said.

The five were identified as two Chinese, two Indians and one Polish national, said Brig. Gen. Lawrence Ngubane, a military commander in the Niger Delta.

On Thursday, a leader of the militant group behind many of the attacks on Nigeria's oil industry walked free from prison after a judge granted him bail _ a breakthrough in the crisis roiling Africa's oil giant and global petroleum markets.

A newly liberated Mujahid Dokubo-Asari told cheering supporters who greeted him after a year and a half behind bars that he would continue to work for greater autonomy and oil riches for the impoverished crude oil-pumping region.

"I will continue to stand by the struggle that I have dedicated my life to," he said, adding that he believed in "the right of our people to take what belongs to them."

Dokubo-Asari's liberation was a key demand of the main militant group in the region, where oil-installation attacks and more than 200 kidnappings of foreign workers in the past 18 months have cut Nigeria's oil production and helped send crude prices higher.

Dokubo-Asari's lawyers said he would not leave the capital, Abuja, for his home in the oil region before Saturday.

President Umaru Yar'Adua has said the crisis is one of his main priorities, and Dokubo-Asari's release two weeks after Yar'Adua's inauguration was seen as a peace offering by the new government. A spokesman for the militant group praised the development, calling it a "positive sign" that could hasten a negotiated peace.

"We are pleased at the release on bail today of Asari," the spokesman said in an e-mail sent Thursday to The Associated Press. "It is justice long overdue."

The militants have also demanded liberty for an ex-governor on trial for corruption charges, as well as more government oil funds for their region _ which remains desperately poor despite its great natural bounty.

Attacks claimed by the group have cut oil production by about a quarter in Nigeria, Africa's top producer and a leading source of U.S. oil imports.

Militants said they would cease attacks for one month, after the May 29 inauguration of Yar'Adua.

Dokubo-Asari was arrested and charged in November 2005 after saying in a newspaper interview he would work for the breakup of Nigeria.

Violence in the region escalated with his arrest, spearheaded by a new group named Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, which is believed to include many of Dokubo-Asari's fighters.

Attacks in the past 18 months have cut Nigeria's daily production and led to a serious degradation of security _ driving away many foreign oil staff and sending companies' operating costs soaring.

Dokubo-Asari's release, while a development in relations between the government and militants, wasn't likely to end the kidnappings for ransom. The practice has grown widespread in the lawless Niger Delta, and many of the seizures are seen as unrelated to any political demands. Some two dozen foreigners are known to be in captivity in the region.