Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kampala (Agenzia Fides)- Investigations into the double terrorist attack on 11 July in the Ugandan capital continue. Responsibility for the attacks, which left 76 persons dead and hundreds injured, was claimed by Shabab, Somali insurgents fighting the Transition Government of Mogadishu sustained by an African intervention force, composed mainly of Ugandan soldiers.
Ugandan police arrested some forty persons suspected of being involved in the attacks, many from Somalia. Uganda shelters a good number of Somali refugees and trains part of the army of Somalia's Transition Government on its soil. According to a local daily newspaper The Monitor a more complex and alarming plan than originally supposed is appearing from behind the attacks on 11 July. The paper cites a Ugandan intelligence report issued in September 2009 which speaks of an alleged plan for bomb blasts in Kampala by elements of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) with the support of Shabab. ADF is a Muslim extremist group formed in 1996, which later merged with another guerrilla group, the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda.
“ADF is a weak group which since 2001 has been unable to operate in Uganda. Its components fled some time ago to the Democratic Republic of Congo. I think it is improbable that they were involved in the attacks in Kampala” Fides learned from Bishop Egidio Nkaijanabwo of the diocese of Kasese, in south western Uganda where the ADF operated for a few years. “Between 1996 and 2001 the group spread insecurity in our diocese and the Church was also affected. This radical Islamic group was supported by a foreign power. Later, in about 2001, the Ugandan army managed to regain control of the area. Then the ADF militants took refuge in Congo”.
ADF/NALU, which had been almost inactive, hit the headlines a few weeks ago when ADF bases in north Kivu were targeted by the Congolese army. According to international humanitarian agencies working in the area, at least 90,000 civilians fled the area because of the violence.
The Ugandan intelligence report cited by The Monitor said ADF has 800 combatants, “all Muslims, 40% Ugandan and the rest Congolese, Tanzanians, Senegalese, Somalis and others from west Africa”. The leader is Jamil Mukulu, a former Catholic converted to Islam, who was reportedly wounded in recent days in eastern Congo. According to The Monitor, before the July 11 attacks the Ugandan army had planned an attack on ADF/NALU bases in Congo, with the support of the Congolese and the United States. If confirmed, this information would point to a complex scenario in which radical Islam and the war on terrorism led by the United States, are superimposed by decade old tensions in the area. In the background the immense resources of Congo and Uganda's oil, only just starting to be exploited. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 29/7/2010)
