Via the BBC: Mexico rebels claim oil attacks

A little-known leftist rebel group in Mexico says it carried out a series of recent attacks on oil pipelines.

The Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) said it had attacked oil installations of the state-owned oil company, Pemex.

The EPR, which has been inactive for several years, said it acted to press the government to release two of the group’s jailed members.

[…]

The EPR claimed responsibility for the blasts in a statement posted on the internet.

It said “the actions of harassment will not stop” until the release of its two jailed members.

So far there has been no independent confirmation of the authenticity of the statement.

[…]

The EPR first emerged in south-western Mexico in 1996, vowing to fight for social justice for the country’s poor.

I must confess, I am not sure if I have ever heard of them or not (I think I have, but let’s say they haven’t figured prominently in the attention I have paid to Mexican politics). Of course, if your group is basically unknown and you have been inactive for years and you decide to blow up some pipelines to influence the government over some prisoners, do you really qualify as a “guerrilla” group? Surely they have lost their official “guerrilla group” membership at this stage of the game.