More than 2,000 suspected militants were rounded up by the Nigerian government troops at the weekend in the oil-rich, but violent oil city of Port Harcourt, the capital of Nigeria's southern state of Rivers, local newspaper This Day reported on Sunday.

The Joint Task Force, made up of Police, Army, Navy and Airforce, raided suspected hideouts of militants in a joint operation that started on Friday night and ended in the early hours of Saturday, recovering items, including guns, ammunitions and explosives.

Major Sagir Musa, the Army Public Relations Officer of the Amphibious Brigade in Port Harcourt, confirmed the raid, saying they found out that those who have been committing crimes had their hideouts in the raided areas of Iloabuchi, Diobu and the notorious Njemanze streets.

"Following security reports that those behind most of the militant activities, robbery and other such criminal activities are residing in Diobu, a Joint Task Force decided to do what we call 'Cordon and Search'," he said.

"We circled the area with armed military personnel while policemen and military police went to each house looking for explosives, guns and any dangerous weapon. It will be a continuous exercise," he added.

The arrested militants are believed to be suspected criminals who took a total of 15 foreign oil workers hostages in seven occasions in the past two weeks in the Niger Delta although 10 of them have been released unharmed since last week.

Since the beginning of this year, more kidnappings and attacks on oil facilities by militants have occurred in the Niger Delta, which have forced Nigeria, the largest oil producer in Africa or the sixth largest oil exporter in the world, to cut production by 670,000 barrels per day (bpd), or 26 percent of its crude production of 2.5 million bpd.

Source: Xinhua