ISIS claims deadly double suicide blasts in Uganda as terror group opens new front in Africa Caliphate ‘takeover’

From The Sun

ISIS has opened up a new front as fanatics try to build a new Caliphate in Africa – with at least three people killed in a double suicide bombing today (Tuesday 16th).

Hundreds were forced to rush for cover as cars burst into flames in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, in the midst of a wave of blast attacks. At least 33 people were being treated in hospital, including five in critical condition, police spokesperson Fred Enanga said.

The death toll including the three bombers was six, Enanga said. A diplomat told Reuters two police officers were killed.

Islamic state claimed responsibility for a deadly attack in Uganda’s capital on Tuesday, the militant group’s Amaq News Agency said on an affiliated Telegram account.

The attacks in the Ugandan capital shocked a nation known as a bulwark against violent Islamist militants in East Africa, and whose leader has spent years cultivating Western security support.

It comes as it’s feared ISIS is “evolving into a new beast” in order to strike the West. The terror network already has branches operating in Tunisia, Libya and Mozambique, and across the Sahel region including Mali and Chad. Chad has problems with jihadist violence in the Lake Chad region that borders Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, while Somalia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo are also battling Islamist extremists.

Ashok Swain, professor of peace and conflict research at Sweden’s Uppsala University, previously told The Sun Online: “The Taliban victory in Afghanistan has given new momentum to the Islamist terror groups worldwide – including al-Qaeda and ISIS. The Islamist terror groups are gaining more and more strength gradually in Africa. War is coming to an end in Afghanistan and Syria, so there will be a shift of the focus of the Islamist terror groups…”

…two explosions were reported just three minutes apart in Kampala – the first near the central police station and the second very close to parliament – sending bloodied office workers rushing for cover over shards of broken glass as a plume of white smoke rose above downtown. A suicide bomber wearing a backpack detonated near the checkpoint at the police station, killing two . . . The second attack, involving two suicide bombers on motorbikes, killed one person.

Last month, Islamic State claimed its first blast in Uganda – an attack on a police station in Kampala which killed no one.

Days later, it later said a “security detachment” in “Central Africa Province” bombed a restaurant. Police said the device killed a waitress and wounded three others, and linked it to the ADF, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Also last month, Ugandan police said a suicide bomber had blown up a bus, killing only himself. His affiliation was unclear.

Meanwhile in October, two children were killed in a Ugandan village when they were handed a device that looked like a jackfruit.

The Pentagon has warned Islamic State is taking over swathes of Africa like it did in Syria and Iraq with “staggeringly brutal” tactics.

Enanga, the police spokesman, said Tuesday’s attacks bore the hallmarks of the work of this group. At least 150 planned attacks have recently been defused, he said, describing AED as a “domestic terror group eager to carry out more attacks”.