Uganda’s army says it discovers training facility for Islamist militia

KIKUBAJINJA, Uganda (Reuters) – Uganda’s navy stated on Thursday it had found bomb making materials at a coaching facility for an Islamic State-allied insurgent group round 60 kilometres west of the capital Kampala, and that three individuals had been detained.

Authorities blamed the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a militia primarily based within the dense forests in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, for a sequence of bombings in Kampala and elsewhere late final 12 months which left at the least 9 individuals useless.

In one of many worst assaults, a suicide bomber blew himself up on the entrance of a police station within the centre of Kampala. Three minutes later two different suicide bombers detonated alongside a street that results in the parliament.

The coaching facility was discovered on the residence of an area man, military spokesman Felix Kulayigye stated throughout a media tour of the village of Kikubajinja in Luwero district.

A tunnel used for coaching had been dug in one of many rooms, he stated.

Safety personnel had turn into suspicious after reviews emerged from neighbours that “no person was allowed to enter, no person can be seen getting out,” Kulayigye stated.

Authorities recovered bomb making supplies together with steel, nails and wires in addition to bullets and a pistol fitted with a silencer, he stated.

In November the Ugandan military started a joint operation with the Congolese military to root out the ADF, which began as an rebellion in Uganda however has been primarily based in Congo for the reason that late Nineties and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in mid-2019.

Kulayigye stated the three suspects had already purchased a automobile they deliberate to make use of in an assault.

“They had been within the technique of assembling a bomb which might be taken by that automobile to blow up in a public place,” he stated.

(Reporting by Nairobi Newsroom; Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Modifying by Hereward Holland and Alex Richardson)