Three suicide bombers killed three people and injured dozens in the Ugandan capital, Reuters said

By Elias Biryabarema

KAMPALA (Reuters) – Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack in the heart of the Ugandan capital on Tuesday after three suicide bombers killed three people and sent members of parliament seeking cover in a bomb blast.

The Kampala blasts, which forced the parliament to be emptied, shocked the nation known as a refuge against violent Islamist militants in East Africa, and its leader has spent years cultivating security support in the West.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility through the group’s Amaq News Agency in an affiliated Telegram account. The nicknames of the three attackers indicated that they were all Ugandans.

The death toll has been six including three attacks, police spokesman Fred Enanga said, including police. A diplomat told Reuter that two policemen were killed.

Enanga said 33 people were being treated at the hospital, and five were in critical condition.

Police said the intelligence indicated that the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) aligned with the Islamic State were responsible.

“Our minds … indicate that they are domestic terrorist groups linked to the ADF,” Enanga said.

The blast lasted three minutes – the first near the central police station and two very close to the parliament – as deputies and office staff went in search of cover on the broken pieces of glass as a plume of white smoke rose to the center.

A suicide bomber carrying a backpack exploded near the control of the police station, killing two, Enanga said. In the second attack, which involved two suicide bombers on motorcycles, one person was killed.

“It sounded like a big gun. The ground shook, my ears were almost deaf,” said Peter Olupot, a 28-year-old bank guard near parliament. “I saw a vehicle on fire and everyone was running and panicking. I saw a man at the wedding (motorcycle) – they broke his head.”

Counter-terrorism police caught another suicide bomber and found a device in his home, Enanga said.

MILITANT GROUPS

The ADF was founded by Muslims in Uganda, but is now housed in the forested mountains of the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, and has been blamed for the deaths of thousands of civilians.

Last month, the Islamic State carried out its first blast in Uganda, an attack on a Kampala police station that killed no one.

A few days later, he said a “security group” had bombed a restaurant in the “Central African Province”. Police said the device killed one server and injured three others, and linked him to the ADF, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

Also last month, Ugandan police said a suicide bomber had detonated a bus, killing only himself. His affiliation was unclear.

Dino Mahtani of the International Crisis Group said the ADF’s focus had shifted from fixing local scores and controlling local war economies.

“With its main faction newly affiliated with ISIS (Islamic State), some foreigners with more globalist jihadist agendas across East Africa are arriving at their camps,” he said.

Laren Poole of the U.S.-based Bridgeway Foundation said the Ugandan bombing and recent attempt in neighboring Rwanda, police announced on Oct. 1, appeared to be linked to a Ugandan bomb manufacturer in eastern Congo called Meddie Nkalubo, nicknamed the “Punisher.”

The group began training combatants to use suicide vests in March, and has since created increasingly sophisticated plots. Initial physical evidence on Tuesday linked the Kampala attack to the ADF, an attempt to show its strength in attracting volunteers.

The Islamic State is promoting a lot of action in what it calls the “Central African Province”.