Suspected terrorist arrested over links to ADF

A joint Uganda security team has arrested a suspected suicide bomber terrorist over links to the Allied Democratic Force (ADF), a designated terrorist group, which the Islamic State in Central Africa Province (ISCAP) confirmed as an affiliate in 2019.

Mr Patrick Onyango, the Kampala Metropolitan police spokesperson, told journalists yesterday that a group of suspected suicide bombers have been under surveillance since November last year.

He said the suspects were tracked down to one of the rental houses in Kigagga Zone, Ssalama Parish, Makindye Division in Kampala.

“We arrested the suspect from his rented house. We did not find household items, but only suspected bomb equipment and materials,’’ he said.

Mr Onyango also revealed that the joint security agencies, while in an operation, recovered three magazines of submachine guns, 88 live ammunitions of submachine guns, 88 live ammunitions of star pistol, two locally-made pistols, and many bomb-making materials.

“Our officers from the Police Directorate of Forensics have documented the crime scene and its exhibits they got from the house and the evidence they have will help them to get more suspects and take them to court. The suspect is being held on charges of terrorism,” he said.

Plot

The tracking of the suspects followed high-level briefings involving a joint force of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) operatives, crime intelligence officer, regular UPDF, police and Joint Anti-Terrorism Taskforce elements for months.

The first major breakthrough, according to a security source, was when police and army operatives bust the ADF Cell in Kito Village, Kiryanira Parish, Gombe Sub-county Nansana Municipality, Wakiso District,  in December last year.

Police detectives close to the investigation told Daily Monitor that one of the suspects in the Kito Village terror case, while on interrogation, told them how the two separate incidents are connected and led them to Makindye where they have been assembling their bombing equipment.

Police preliminary investigations indicate that the suicide bomber suspect was assigned duties to blow up himself in places targeting government officials who move with convoys, security personnel, and places with high traffic jams.

A close neighbour to the crime scene, who chose not to be mentioned because of security reasons, said the suspected terrorist rented the two-roomed house for one year, but he had so far stayed for two months.

Mr Phillip Lubega, the area chairperson, said he had never seen the suspected terrorist, but “I was told that the terrorist and his colleagues used to come in during night and leave at night’’.

“I know the landlord, I will call her and ask her if she knows them or how she has been receiving money from them, maybe she has their contacts,” he said.

The ADF is a Uganda-born rebel group that in the 1990s terrorised mainly western Uganda border areas in Kasese, Bundibugyo and Kabarole before starting a campaign of indiscriminate killings in Kampala by tossing grenades in mainly crowded bars.

Their signature brutality manifested on June 8, 1998 when the marauding rebels struck Kichwamba Technical Institute in Kabarole District, burning dead 80 students and abducting about 100.