ISIS claims responsibility for bomb attack in Uganda

Police officers at a crime scene following a bomb blast in Kampala, Uganda, on Oct 24, 2021. PHOTO: AFP
The explosion killed a 20-year-old waitress and injured three people, two of whom were in critical condition. PHOTO: REUTERS

CAIRO (REUTERS) - The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria claimed responsibility for a bomb attack that killed at least one person in Uganda's capital Kampala on Saturday night (Oct 23), the militant group said in a statement posted in an affiliated Telegram channel late on Sunday.

The group said that some of its members detonated an explosive device in a bar where "members and spies of the Crusader Ugandan government were gathering" in Kampala.

The bomb, packed with nails and shrapnel, targeted a pork restaurant on the outskirts of the capital, police said on Sunday.

Information gathered indicated that three men, disguised as customers, visited the restaurant, placed a polythene bag under a table and left moments before the explosion, police said.

The explosion killed a 20-year-old waitress and injured three people, two of whom were in critical condition, police said, adding that all indications suggest an act of domestic terror.

President Yoweri Museveni said the attack "seems to be a terrorist act".

In 2010, the Somali Islamist militant group Al Shabaab killed dozens of people in Kampala in a bomb attack, saying it was punishing Uganda for deploying troops in Somalia.

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