Police begin arresting pipeline protesters in North Dakota

CANNON BALL, N.D. (AP) — Armed soldiers and law-enforcement officers dressed in riot gear today began arresting protesters who had set up a camp on private land to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Several protesters were led away and put in trucks, including at least one handcuffed, as authorities converged on the camp in North Dakota.

Law-enforcement officers and soldiers driving trucks, military Humvees and buses began to advance at midday and formed a horseshoe-like loop once they reached the camp, where about 200 protesters were awaiting them – some defiant and others praying.

Officials used a loudspeaker to warn protesters to move out. Two helicopters and an airplane monitored the operation from the air.

The operation to push out the protesters began a day after they had refused to leave voluntarily.

The confrontation escalated a dispute that has raged for months. Protesters moved in over the weekend to establish a camp on private land where the developer was working to complete the 1,200-mile pipeline designed to carry oil from western North Dakota to Illinois. The route of the pipeline skirts the Standing Rock Reservation, and the tribe says it could endanger water supplies and disturb cultural sites. The state of North Dakota says no sensitive cultural sites have been found in the area.