Islamic State suicide bombers hit capital city
KAMPALA, Uganda — Two explosions rocked Uganda’s capital, Kampala, on Tuesday, killing at least three civilians in what police described as a coordinated attack by extremists opposed to the government.
Three suicide bombers also died in the blasts, police said. The explosions caused chaos in Kampala as terrified residents fled the city’s center.
“The bomb threats are still active, especially from suicide attackers,” police spokesman Fred Enanga said, blaming the blasts on the Allied Democratic Forces, an extremist group that is affiliated to the Islamic State.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blasts, according to SITE, which tracks the online activities of extremist organizations.
The twin explosions occurred within three minutes of each other. Both were carried out by attackers carrying explosives. A possible attack on a third target was foiled by police who pursued and disarmed a suspected suicide bomber, Enanga said.
At least 33 people are being treated at the city’s main public referral hospital, Enanga told reporters. Five are critically injured, he said.
In a series of Twitter posts, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said the attacks were carried out by “manipulated and confused” youths who were being hunted down by the security forces in the months since a failed assassination bid on a top government official.
Ugandan officials have been urging vigilance in the wake of a string of bomb explosions in recent weeks.
One person was killed and at least seven others wounded in an explosion at a restaurant in a suburb of Kampala on Oct. 23.
Another explosion two days later on a passenger bus killed only the suicide bomber, according to police.
The Allied Democratic Forces, with its local roots, has become a more pressing challenge to Museveni, 77, who has ruled Uganda for 35 years and was re-elected to a five-year term in January.
The group was established in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims, who said they had been sidelined by Museveni’s policies. At the time, the rebel group staged deadly terrorist attacks in Ugandan villages as well as in the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred in a frontier town near the Congo border.
Reports of an alliance between the Allied Democratic Forces and the Islamic State first emerged in 2019, according to SITE.
Uganda is predominantly Christian and Muslims make up about 14% of the country’s 44 million people.