Ugandan police foil bomb plot on churches by rebels

Kampala (AFP): Ugandan police foiled a bomb attack on churches by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel group Sunday about 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the capital Kampala, President Yoweri Museveni said.

The ADF made two bombs, which they “were planning to plant in churches in Kibibi, Butambala”, Museveni wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

But the devices “were reported to police and defused”, he added.

The ADF group has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.

Earlier Sunday, Museveni, 79, who has ruled the country since 1986, said Ugandan forces had carried out air strikes against ADF positions in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

“It seems quite a number of terrorists were killed,” the president said on X, without elaborating.

The ADF could attempt “to commit some random terrorist acts” in Uganda following the airstrikes, he warned.

In September, Ugandan police said they had foiled another bomb attack on a Kampala cathedral, arresting a man suspected of trying to activate the explosive device among worshippers.

In June, ADF militia members killed 42 people including 37 students in a high school in western Uganda near the border with DR Congo.

It was one of the deadliest attacks in Uganda since the 2010 double attack in Kampala that killed 76 people in a raid claimed by the Somali-based Islamist group al-Shabaab.

In its latest report in June, a United Nations expert panel on DR Congo confirmed ISIS had “provided financial support to the ADF since at least 2019”.