Four Suspected Terrorists Arrested

Patrick Okaba and Risdel Kasasira

16 May 2011

The police have arrested four Somali nationals on suspicion of being linked to terrorist groups after they entered Uganda without travel documents. The suspects were arrested on Friday in Pakwach as they travelled in buses from Juba in Sudan to Kampala.

They were intercepted at Pakwach police check-point, after allegedly dodging the immigration border post in Koboko. Three of the suspects speak only Somali but one of them, who speaks English, told police they were going to Kisenyi, in Kampala and then connect to Nairobi.

Nebbi District police commander Alex Wabire said the suspects crossed into the country illegally without passports and visas and used short-cuts to enter Uganda through the bush in Oraba.

“We haven’t confirmed their motive but our investigations will find out. How did they travel all the way from Somalia to Uganda without any travel documents? This makes them suspects,” he said.

One of them who had a Somali passport in the name of Saidi Mohammed Mohammud, born in Mogadishu, on 23 July, 1991, said he is a student in Somalia.

Mr Wabire said the other three suspects had told police through an interpreter that they lost their passports. “If their passports got lost, why didn’t they go to Koboko immigrations border point to get clearance?” Mr Wabire asked.

The deputy director of Counter-terrorism, Mr John Ndungutse, yesterday said the suspects were transferred to Kampala on Saturday.

UPDF soldiers killed

Meanwhile, the Somali insurgents last week paraded a body of suspected Ugandan peacekeeper killed in a battle following a joint operation by the peacekeepers and government forces against the militants.

The pictures that were published on several websites show a soldier being dragged on the streets by men in civilian clothes. The incident followed a statement by the Amisom force commander, Maj. Gen. Nathan Mugisha, issued on Friday, saying two Ugandan peacekeepers had been killed in the operation intended to pave way for the dissemination of services to people.

Gen. Mugisha also said they had killed Abdufita Mohammed, the overall commander of Bakara market and his intelligence officer, Abdiwahab Sheikh Dole.

The army spokesperson, Lt. Col Felix Kulayigye, said he did not have details of when the bodies of the soldiers would be brought for burial and referred Daily Monitor to Maj. Paddy Ankunda, the new spokesperson of the Amisom force.

However, Maj. Ankunda was not clear on the date when the bodies would be brought. “They will be brought soon” he said on phone from Mogadishu. When asked whether the paraded soldier is a Ugandan, Maj. Paddy refused to respond and hung up.

This is the third time the al Shabaab are dragging and parading bodies of Ugandan soldiers with their identity cards. According to military sources, over 50 Somalis were killed in the fighting that is likely to intensify as the month of Ramadhan approaches. “They are now recruiting young people who are going to die during Ramadhan,” the source said.

It’s not clear how many Uganda soldiers have been killed since Uganda and Burundi deployed in Somali in 2007 but according the total of AU forces, it is estimated to be above 100. The AU forces keep safe key Transitional government installations that include the presidential palace, seaport and the airport.

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