/ 17 May 1999

REBELS CLAIM KAMPALA BLASTS

A UGANDAN rebel group has circulated leaflets to newspapers here claiming responsibility for all recent bomb blasts in the capital. The National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (Nalu), a moribund group which was active in western Ugandan in the early 1990s, said its agents carried out the attacks in the capital. A spate of bomb and hand-grenade explosions has hit Kampala and its suburbs since 1997, killing dozens of people and spreading fear in places ranging from bars to taxi ranks, the terrorists’ favourite targets. Remnants of the Nalu are believed to have joined forces with the rebel Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), active in western Ugandan. An alleged ADF presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the reasons Uganda put forward for its involvement in the war in the DRC.