An explosion killed two suspected rebels, including a female suicide bomber, near a Catholic shrine in Uganda’s capital Kampala yesterday. Source: Reuters.
Local newspapers reported that the blast near the Munyonyo Martyrs’ Shrine in the south of the city had killed at least two people as Ugandans assembled to celebrate Martyrs’ Day, which commemorates Christians who were killed for their faith in the 19th century.
The two assailants were thought to be linked Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Congo-based rebel group allied to Islamic State (IS), which claimed responsibility for multiple bombings in 2021, Ugandan army spokesman Chris Magezi told Reuters.
Mr Magezi wrote on X that a “counter-terrorism unit this morning intercepted and neutralised two armed terrorists in Munyonyo, an upscale city suburb.”
One of the individuals was a female suicide bomber “laden with powerful explosives,” Mr Magezi said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion.
“Two people were on a motorcycle and an explosion occurred,” Ugandan police chief Abas Byakagaba said in a video posted on X.
Mr Byakagaba did not say what happened to the two people on the motorbike but added: “The good thing though is that there were no people nearby who were injured.”
The ADF was founded by Ugandan Muslims in the 1990s and initially waged war against the Ugandan government from bases in the country’s west before fleeing into eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where they are blamed by the United Nations for thousands of civilian deaths.
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Two suspected Uganda rebels killed in Kampala blast, officials say (By Elias Biryabarema and Hereward Holland, Reuters)
