No less than 25 individuals have been killed and eight others injured when militants with an extremist group attacked a secondary faculty in western Uganda, the authorities stated on Saturday, in one of many deadliest terrorist assaults to hit the East African nation in years.
The armed outfit, often known as the Allied Democratic Forces, attacked a college in Mpondwe, a city near the border with the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, on Friday night time, a police spokesman, Fred Enanga, stated in a submit on Twitter. In the course of the assault, a dormitory was burned and meals in a retailer was looted, he stated. No less than eight individuals have been in important situation and had been hospitalized, Mr. Enanga added.
Ugandan officers stated the military and the police have been pursuing the militants who attacked the college towards the Virunga Nationwide Park, a thick forest that’s residence to endangered mountain gorillas. A navy spokesman stated on Twitter that they have been additionally working to free those that had been kidnapped. It was not instantly clear how many individuals the militants had kidnapped.
The assault is the worst one which the group has carried out in Uganda since late 2021, when suicide bombers set off coordinated explosions within the capital, Kampala, that killed three individuals, sowing fears concerning the group’s attain and posing a vexing problem for Ugandan authorities. Since then, the Ugandan authorities, together with the Congolese authorities, has launched an offensive in opposition to the Allied Democratic Forces, or A.D.F., with the goal of rooting the group out from its bases in japanese Congo.
The 2 governments have supplied few particulars concerning the navy marketing campaign, saying solely that air and artillery strikes have weakened the group. However regional observers have remained uncertain concerning the success of the operation, code-named Shujaa, or “Bravery,” saying that the A.D.F. has continued to wreak havoc in japanese Congo, a lush, mineral-rich area the place greater than 100 insurgent teams have overseen a wave of massacres and widespread destruction for many years.
Consultants additionally say that Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, who has been in energy for nearly 4 many years, was utilizing the operation to bolster his picture and to safe oil fields which are being dug close to the border with Congo.
The A.D.F. was established in japanese Congo in 1995 by two teams against Mr. Museveni, one in all them an Islamist sect. The group additionally obtained regional backing from leaders in different international locations, together with Sudan and Congo, who sought to undermine Mr. Museveni’s rule.
In 1998, rebels affiliated with the group attacked a school in western Uganda, killing 80 college students and kidnapping 100 others.
However starting in 2011, main offensives carried out by the Ugandans, the Congolese and United Nations peacekeeping forces undermined the group, prompting it to retreat deeper into the mountainous Ruwenzori area that borders Uganda and Congo.
The group’s former chief, Jamil Mukulu, was additionally captured in Tanzania in 2015 after which extradited to Uganda.
The A.D.F. has nonetheless continued to hold out much more vicious and daring assaults. Over the previous few years, it has recruited new members, together with youngsters; attacked peacekeepers; performed jail breaks; and engaged in sexual violence, based on the United Nations.
It additionally pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, which in 2019 claimed its first assault in Congo. In 2021, the US designated the A.D.F. a terrorist group and provided a reward of as much as $5 million for info on the group’s new chief, Seka Musa Baluku.
However whereas there are some monetary connections and ideological similarities between the 2 entities, regional observers and U.N. specialists say there isn’t any “conclusive proof” of the Islamic State commanding or controlling A.D.F. operations.
