Three dead, tens injured in Kampala twin blasts
Police cordons off the crime scene at Parliament Avenue.
Three people were killed in suicide bomb blasts that rocked Kampala, Uganda, on Tuesday morning, in the latest terrorist attack that security officials say was carried out by domestic terror groups linked to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
The blasts went off three minutes apart, with the first exploding at Central Police Station at 10.03am, killing two people and injuring 17, police spokesperson Fred Enanga told journalists in the Naguru suburb of Kampala.
The second blast, which killed one person and injured 16, went off on Parliament Avenue at 10.06am, detonated by two men riding two motorbikes, CCTV footage released by the police showed.
Five of the injured were in critical condition, including two police officers, the police said.
Three suicide bombers were involved in the attacks, while a fourth terrorist was intercepted en route to detonating the bomb.
“We pursued the fourth attacker and shot him in Bwaise. He is only identified as Moze. We found a suicide jacket and other materials for making bombs at his home in Nansana, Katooke, Wamala Parish,” said Mr Enanga.
Be more vigilant
The Tuesday attacks are the third in less than one month, and the police warn “these are not the type of enemies you can easily uproot” because they live within the community and use things that are readily available or those sold in shops – such as nails, bicycle ball bearings and scrap metal – to make bombs.
On October 24, a nail bomb exploded and killed one person at a restaurant in the Komamboga suburb, north of Kampala, and two days later, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb on a bus.
“We strongly believe there are other terrorists who are part of this group, so we ask Ugandans to be more vigilant,” the police sportsperson warned.
Mr Enanga explained that the nature of the attacks, which involve suicide bombers, points to ADF, a Ugandan rebel group that follows Islamist ideology, and has been operating out of eastern Congo since the 1990s but with sleeper cells in Uganda.
The ADF has recently allied to the Islamic State and transformed into the Central Africa unit of the Islamic State, according to security intelligence.
