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LAGOS (AFP)--Militants in Nigeria's Niger Delta region said Wednesday they had blown up two key oil pipelines in the area operated by the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell (RDSA) and the Italian group Agip.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, said in a statement it had blown up the lines in a predawn attack in the Bayelsa state, in the Niger Delta, as part of a campaign to cripple the oil industry.

Violence in the southern oil-producing hub of the world's eighth-largest crude exporter has sharply cut output by more than 30% over the past three and a half years.