'Deadly attack' in Angola enclave

A secessionist group in Angola's Cabinda region says it has killed three soldiers and severely wounded a foreign worker in separate ambushes on Monday.

A Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave (Flec) spokesman said it would attack anyone who entered the oil-rich enclave without approval.

He said the foreigner was employed by a Portuguese firm. There has been no independent confirmation of the attack.

Most separatists signed a peace deal in 2006, but one Flec faction did not.

The province does not share a border with the rest of Angola - it is sandwiched between the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo on Africa's west coast.

A Flec spokesman said the foreigner was targeted because he was travelling area with security officers.

"We have warned many times people not to enter the territories controlled by our army and people don't respect this," he told the BBC.

"They usually get accompanied by bodyguards, the military, so when they do so they become military targets - we are obliged to fight against them."

A spokesman for the Portuguese construction company declined to comment on the incident.

Only half a million people live in Cabinda and most of Angola's crude oil comes from Cabinda's offshore deposits.