KANA RUGBANA, Nigeria - Nigerian commander Remi Fadairo points to the roiling plume of black smoke blotting the morning horizon in the Niger Delta - the unmistakable sign of an illicit oil refinery.

"Let's see if we can go eat them for breakfast," he says with an ominous chuckle.

The 44-year-old colonel, with broad shoulders and his fatigues tucked into gumboots, is standing in the middle of a destroyed illicit refinery in Kana Rugbana, an area in the swamplands some 37 kilometers from Port Harcourt.