Three persons have been arrested after bomb-making equipment was discovered at a training center for ADF rebels connected to ISIL (ISIS) roughly 60 kilometers (37 miles) west of Kampala, Uganda’s capital.
Army spokesperson Felix Kulayigye made the disclosure during a media tour of the Kikubajinja community in Luwero area on Thursday.
The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a militia headquartered in the vast forests of neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, were blamed by authorities for a series of bombs in Kampala and elsewhere in November that killed at least nine people.
A suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of a police station in the heart of Kampala in one of the bloodiest attacks. Two more suicide bombers exploded three minutes later along a route leading to the parliament.
According to Kulayigye, the training facility was discovered within a local’s home, with a tunnel excavated in one of the rooms for training purposes.
After hearing from neighbors that “nobody was allowed to enter, nobody would be seen getting out,” security personnel became skeptical, according to an army spokesperson.
Authorities seized bomb-making materials like as metal, nails, and wiring, as well as ammunition and a silencer-equipped pistol, he added.
The Ugandan army and the Congolese army began a coordinated operation in November to expel the ADF, which originated as an insurgency in Uganda but has been based in the DRC since the late 1990s.
In mid-2019, it declared allegiance to the Islamic State.
According to Kulayigye, the three suspects had already purchased a car that they intended to use in an assault.
“They were in the process of assembling a bomb which would be taken by that car to explode in a public place,” he said.
