Ugandan police said today they foiled a bomb attack at a cathedral in the capital Kampala and arrested a man who allegedly wanted to detonate an explosive device among worshippers.

The Rubaga Miracle Center Cathedral was evacuated after the man tried to enter with a bomb on him, police spokesman Patrick Onyango said. “We proceeded with a controlled detonation of the improvised bomb which included nails, a moped battery, a charger and a telephone receiver,” he added, speaking to reporters outside the temple.

According to Onyango, the police located the 28-year-old after receiving a tip-off about a possible attack on the temple. The bomb was found in the backpack that the suspect was carrying.

The authorities are looking for three of his accomplices.

The area around the cathedral was cordoned off and searched, but nothing suspicious was found.

“The terrorist was a few meters from the entrance but security forces stopped him and arrested him before he could go inside and detonate the bomb,” said evangelical pastor Robert Kayanja, who has publicly expressed his support for President Yoweri Museveni.

In June, jihadists from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an organization that has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, killed 42 people, including 37 students, at a high school in western Uganda, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. . This was the deadliest attack in Uganda since the twin attack in Kampala in 2010 that killed 76 people. At the time, the Islamist Shebaab of Somalia claimed responsibility.