PORT HARCOURT -The military Joint Task Force in Rivers, said on Sunday in Port Harcourt that it would treat the unilateral ceasefire by the militant Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta with extreme caution.

“We hope it is not another tactical deception which we are used to and already prepared to contain,” spokesman of the JTF, Lt.-Col Sagir Musa, told newsmen.

“If it is true, it is a good development to themselves, the region, the nation and the international community,” he added.

Musa said that at the JTF level, “we will continue to carefully and firmly monitor the situation, exercise limited level of restraint until MEND’s new position is seen to have been actualised.”

MEND declared the ceasefire today.

Its spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, said the caesefire was a unilateral decision of the group which declared a war on the JTF and oil facilities last Sunday.

Its war, code-named “Operation Barbarosa” was aimed at avenging “unprovoked attack” by Nigerian troops on communities in Rivers State, Gbomo said.

He added that the oil war would also nibble at Nigeria’s oil industry until oil exports were reduced to zero level.

Scores of people were killed in the face-off, while the militants razed facilities belonging to Shell, Chevron and Agip.