A triple suicide attack killed at least three people in the heart of Uganda’s capital, Kampala, on Tuesday (16), sending members of Parliament running for protection.
The explosions in Kampala have shocked the country, known as a symbol of the fight against Islamic terrorists in East Africa and whose leader has spent years cultivating Western support in the area of security.
At least 33 people are receiving medical care, including five who are seriously ill, according to police spokesman Fred Enanga. A diplomat told Reuters news agency that two agents were among the victims, information confirmed by Enanga, who declined to give details.
So far, there has been no claim of authorship of the attack, even though the police indicate that those responsible are members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) aligned with the Islamic State.
The explosions — the first near the central police station and the second near the Parliament — sent bloodied officials running for protection amid shards of glass and a cloud of white smoke rising in the center of the capital.
With a backpack, one of the suicide bombers carried out the attack near the barrier set up at the police station, leaving two dead. The second attack, with two suicide bombers on motorcycles, killed another person.
“There came a thunderous sound, the ground shook and my ears deafened,” said guard Peter Olupot, 28, who works at a bank and was close to the action taking place outside Parliament.
A Reuters journalist saw burned cars behind the police cordon formed at the scene of the attack, and a reporter for the local NTV Uganda channel said he saw two bodies in the street. According to Enanga, the spokesman, the anti-terrorism police arrested another person who was preparing to carry out another attack.
The Somali al-Shabaab faction, linked to al-Qaeda, has carried out a series of attacks in Uganda in the past, including one in 2010 that left 70 dead, in a likely reaction to the participation of Ugandan soldiers in the fight against al Shabaab as part of of an African Union peacekeeping force with UN support.
The ADF, founded by Ugandan Muslims, are now very active in the mountains of the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, where they have been blamed for the deaths of thousands of civilians.
Last month, Islamic State claimed responsibility for the first time for an explosion in Uganda — an attack on a police station in Kampala in which no one was killed. The faction later also claimed that a “security detachment” in a “Central African province” had planted a bomb in a restaurant. Police said the action killed a waiter and injured three others.
Also last month, Ugandan police reported that a suicide bomber blew up a bus, killing only himself. His affiliation was uncertain. Dino Mahtani of the think tank International Crisis Group says the ADF’s focus was previously limited to settling scores and controlling local economic wars. “With the latest connection to the Islamic State, a number of East African foreigners with more global jihadist agendas have been moving into the ADF camps,” he said.
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