ABC News Exclusive: Online Interview With a Terrorist

Jan. 8, 2008— -- The following are excerpts from an e-mail interview conducted by Brian Ross with a person who calls himself Jomo and the leader of MEND. While it is impossible to verify with absolute certainty that the author of the e-mails is in fact who he claims to be, messages from the same e-mail address accurately informed ABC News and other organizations of impending MEND attacks in Nigeria and provided photos of hostages the author says are in his group's custody.

Are you the leader or commander of MEND? What is your background?

From: Jomo Gbomo [mailto:yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007
To: Ross, Brian E
Subject: RE: Good afternoon from Brian Ross at ABC News

I am the leader of Mend and all militias in the niger delta. No authority supersedes mine.

Let me start by asking you to describe the goals of your organization, its size and its current activities.

From: Jomo Gbomo [mailto: yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007
To: Ross, Brian E
Subject: RE: Good afternoon from Brian Ross at ABC News

The movement for the emancipation of the niger delta (MEND) is an amalgam of all arm bearing groups in the niger delta fighting for the control of oil revenue by indegenes of the niger delta who have had relatively no benefits from the exploitation of our mineral resources by the nigerian government and oil companies over the last fifty years.

We are spread across the 6 states of the niger delta and have in our ranks approximately five thousand fighters, two thousand of whom are presently active. Our camps are regularly overwhelmed by volunteers who we have to turn back for now as there is presently no need to increase our fighter strenght.

Our aim on inception was to attract international attention to the plight of the people of the delta and the injustice the world has been turning a blind eye to. That obviously had no effect on the nigerian government and oil companies so we have progressed to the next stage of our campaign which is limited attacks on oil installations and administrative facilities. This also appears to be doing little good and we are now considering the next phase which will be a more ruthless approach to our objective.