Ugandan police announced Thursday that they have shot dead five suspects and arrested 21 people as part of the investigation into a recent double suicide attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group that killed four people in Kampala.
The two attacks, carried out by three suicide bombers, took place within two minutes of each other on Tuesday morning, first at a checkpoint near the police headquarters and then near the Parliament building in the business district of the Ugandan capital.
The police attributed these two attacks to a “local group linked to the ADF”, the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebellion born in Uganda and active for 25 years in the east of the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
They were claimed by the EI, which refers to the ADF as its “Central African Province” (Iscap). In March, the United States officially declared the ADF affiliated with the EI.
In a shootout in western Uganda on Thursday, counterterrorism officers killed “four suspects in Ntoroko, from where they were returning to the Democratic Republic of Congo,” police spokesman Fred Enanga told reporters.
A fifth man, Sheikh Abas Muhamed Kirevu, was killed near the capital while trying to escape arrest, he added, identifying him as a local Muslim leader “responsible for reviving terrorist cells in Kampala. Police also arrested 21 suspects, “operatives, coordinators and moneymen of terrorist activities,” Enanga said.
In a shootout in western Uganda on Thursday, counterterrorism officers killed “four suspects in Ntoroko, from where they were returning to the Democratic Republic of Congo,” police spokesman Fred Enanga told reporters.
A fifth man, Sheikh Abas Muhamed Kirevu, was killed near the capital while trying to escape arrest, he added, identifying him as a local Muslim leader “responsible for reviving terrorist cells in Kampala. Police also arrested 21 suspects, “operatives, coordinators and moneymen of terrorist activities,” Enanga said.