POLICE IN Uganda have found a suicide vest laced with ball bearings in a Kampala nightclub, suggesting that Sunday night’s bombers planned more attacks in the capital.
Speaking to reporters yesterday morning, police chief Kale Kayihura said that the vest, packed in a laptop bag and connected to a detonator, could have been used by a suicide bomber or detonated remotely. “We have established that what was found at the discotheque was a suicide vest, and it could also be used as an IED [improvised explosive device].
“This is very significant to our investigation. It is consistent with what was found at both scenes of crime.
“This is putting more to al-Shabab’s claim that they are the ones behind this,” he said.
The death toll from the bombings, which ripped through two venues – a crowded restaurant and a rugby club – showing the World Cup final between the Netherlands and Spain, rose to 76 yesterday, as fears began to grow that al-Shabab could be planning more attacks in east Africa.
The Somali-based Islamist organisation is fighting to overthrow Somalia’s weak western-backed transitional government, but the success of Sunday’s attacks could embolden them to strike outside their own country again.
Burundi, which with Uganda makes up the bulk of the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, is on high alert, while Kenya’s foreign minister told parliament in Nairobi that Kenya would be “ready and available to repulse any threats to the security and tranquility of this country”.
“It is rare that terrorist groups go to the trouble of creating an infrastructure in another country to support an operation, identify a target and plan and co-ordinate an attack only once,” said Prof Bruce Hoffman, director of the centre for peace and security studies at Georgetown University in Washington DC.
“The fact that they were simultaneous indicates a degree of co-ordination and planning that is more advanced than we had previously assumed . . . All the ingredients are there for al-Shabab to venture outside of their traditional geographical locus of Somalia,” he said.
According to analysts, several hundred militants trained in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan have infiltrated the group, bringing with them expertise on how to make suicide bombs and IEDs.
A sophisticated media and outreach arm has also managed to recruit disaffected members of the Somali community in other countries, especially the US and UK.
In October 2008 an American teenager from Minnesota became the first confirmed American suicide bomber, when he drove a car with explosives into a compound in northern Somalia.
“There are hardliners who want to internationalise the conflict so that they can radicalise elements within al-Shabab,” said EJ Hoogendoorn of the International Crisis Group in Nairobi.
“They don’t have the conventional capability to strike outside their country, but the porous borders that Somalia shares with its neighbours means they can move in and out as they wish.”
Al Shabab said yesterday they had carried out the attacks. An official from the group said there had been no suicide bombers involved.
A Ugandan military intelligence source meanwhile said that intelligence officials had received a tip-off last month that an attack was being planned.Al-Shabab has banned watching soccer matches in areas under its control.
The African Union said Uganda would still host a summit of African leaders this month and said it would not be deterred from its peacekeeping mission.– (Additional reporting Reuters)