Lori Ssebulime and her friends arrived at the restaurant early for a good seat to watch the World Cup final. “I remember a bright flash and everything went grey and it felt like rain,” she wrote later on her blog. “I could feel broken plastic all around me and I heard screaming from every direction. I could taste blood in my mouth and felt burning sensations.”
Twin explosions targeting football fans at a restaurant and rugby club in Kampala, Uganda, on 11 July killed 76 people and seriously injured dozens more. The Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility.
Al-Shabaab is aiming to topple Somalia’s weak government, which is protected in Mogadishu by African Union peacekeepers, most of whom are Ugandan. Uganda is also hosting Somali government soldiers who are being trained in a European-backed programme.
East Africa’s deadliest attacks for 12 years drew worldwide condemnation. US president Barack Obama said it betrayed an attitude that life in Africa is cheap. One of his officials elaborated: “Al-Qaeda is a racist organisation that treats black Africans like cannon fodder and does not value human life.”
The US cited the 1998 bombings of its embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which killed 224 people and injured thousands. The atrocities effectively announced the then obscure al-Qaeda’s intent to the world. But since then there have been relatively few such incidents in sub-Saharan Africa.
Serious threat to continent
In 2002, three suicide bombers blew up the Mombasa Paradise resort hotel in Kenya when it was full of Israelis, killing 15 people. In June last year, a suicide bombing killed Somalia’s security minister and at least 30 others in a hotel in Baladwayne – an attack blamed on al-Shabaab insurgents.
Last December, a suicide bomber killed 22 people, including three government ministers, at Mogadishu’s Shamo Hotel. And in January this year, the Togo football team bus travelling from Congo-Brazzaville to the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola came under machine-gun fire in Cabinda which killed two and wounded seven.
The Cabinda incident raised alarm about the World Cup in South Africa. Some reports suggested that al-Shabaab had established a network near Cape Town. But the tournament passed without incident.
There are growing fears, however, that rising Islamic militancy could be a serious threat in the continent. The US pours millions of dollars into counter-terrorism efforts in East African countries.
While al-Shabaab has carried out numerous attacks in Somalia, last week’s operation was its first outside the country, indicating its regional ambitions. Some analysts have seen it as a declaration that al-Qaeda’s franchises have expanded beyond Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. – guardian.co.uk