The person who died in the Monday evening explosion on Swift Safaris bus along Kampala Masaka Highway was a suicide bomber, President Yoweri Museveni has confirmed.
The explosion happened at Lungala in Mpigi District, Central Uganda, killing one person and leaving several others nursing injuries.
Museveni identified the suicide bomber as Muzafalu adding that he had been calling himself Isaac Matovu.
“He was part of the Pader group that had been sent by ADF to blow up the mourners during the funeral of late Maj. Gen Paul Lokech. One of them, by the names of Katumba Abdu, was arrested in a Pader Hotel with his bomb-making equipment – he has been brought to court,” The President said.
“His collaborator, by the names of Nsubuga Hamid fled from Pader to Kampala, where he was killed by the CMI operatives while resisting arrest.
“The killing of Nsubuga, the arrest of Katumba, plus the killing of Lubwama Hussein others that were involved in the attack of Katumba and the arrest of Walusimbi Kamada, and 5 others that were also involved in the attack of Katumba has enabled Police and CMI, to arrest a large number of suspected operatives of ADF.
“Arresting or killing these suspected criminals, led to the hunt for Muzafala and others who are still on the run in Uganda and outside,” he said.
Monday evening’s bomb attack was the first act of suicide bombing to ever be witnessed in Uganda.
Muzafala before blowing himself up was already on the CMI radar and was being followed by CMI squads.
“The breakthrough followed the attack on Katumba. That is when full accountability for the ADF criminals irreversibly started and their impunity ended in the phase of urban terrorism,” Museveni said.
“The defeat of their rural terrorism was in 2007 in the Semliki National Park. The present shallow effort is easy to defeat. Just some vigilance by the people e.g. checks at the hotels, churches, mosques or buses, etc., will immunize these gathering points against these bombs.”
“The Police will put out guidelines. We are following all the other shallow schemes that will be similarly defeated. The injuring of some Ugandans in the bus is much regretted.”