Sudan Coup Crisis: Uganda willing to offer Al-Bashir asylum: Michale Baleke

Uganda willing to offer Al-Bashir asylum
Here below is a video by SABC posted today at this blog’s parent site SUDAN WATCH.

Also, the following copy of a written report by SABC posted with the video.

From SABC Digital News

Published on Google’s YouTube, Tuesday 16 April 2019:

UGANDA OFFERS OUSTED SUDAN’S AL-BASHIR ASYLUM

“The government of Uganda says it is willing to consider granting asylum to deposed Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir. It says, this in appreciation for his role in the South-Sudan peace deal. Uganda's State Minister for foreign affairs Henry Okello Oryem, said on Tuesday in Kampala, that if al-Bashir applied for asylum in Uganda his government could consider the matter. We are now joined LIVE for more on this story by Correspondent Michale Baleke from Kampala, Uganda.”

Click here to view the video:  https://youtu.be/CLHWaD87WtU

South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is funded in whole or in part by the South African government. Wikipedia

Al-Shabab and Al-Qaeda: Playing Americans for suckers - Clooney Falling Into Bin Laden’s Sudan Trap

Al-Shabab and Al-Qaeda: Playing Americans for suckers
Source: Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention.com
Author: Michael Scheuer
Published: 15 July, 2010. Full copy (excluding 4 Comments):

The suicide bombing in Uganda’s capital of Kampala by the Somali Islamist group al-Shabab serves several agendas. While the facile and clueless Western media call it an “anti-World Cup attack” and the lame Obama White House says it proves al-Qaeda’s “racism” toward Africans, the reality is that from al-Sahbab’s perspective the attack is a logical and necessary response to the prolonged U.S.- and Western-backed intervention in Somalia. (How long, one wonders, will it take U.S. and Western officials to learn people don’t like being occupied?) The Kampala attack also is another episode in al-Qaeda’s ongoing campaign to lure the United States into more interventions in the Muslim world.

At the most basic level, there would be no al-Shabab in Somalia — at least not at its present strength, reach, and popularity — if Washington had not panicked several years ago at the thought of an Islamist organization known as the “Islamic Courts” taking power in Somalia. The Islamic Courts’ had all but displaced a feckless, corruption-ridden UN-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), and was beginning to bring a harsh but effective law-and-order system to Somalia for the first time in decades. Under President Bush, however, Washington could not stand the thought of a working Islamic government and so labored overtly and covertly for its demise.

Ultimately, Washington supported Ethiopia’s late-2006 invasion of Somalia without thinking through that it would henceforth be seen as the sponsor of Christian Ethiopia’s invasion of Muslim Somalia. The invasion turned Somalis of most factions against the interloping Christian occupiers. The large and better-armed Ethiopian conventional forces prevailed, broke up what was left of the Islamic Courts, and protected the UN-backed TFG, which now appeared even more as the imposed creature of hostile Christian countries. The Ethiopians fought a growing guerrilla war against the Somali militias and insurgents until casualties became too heavy and Addis Ababa decided to withdraw its forces. The African Union then acted to supply the 5,000 military personnel from Uganda and Burundi who now are the peacekeepers and TFG-protectors in the capital of Mogadishu.

The sum of this complicated story is that al-Shabab was born, developed quickly, and now appears to have the manpower, political savvy, and military wherewithal to compete for control of much of the central and southern portions of Somalia. Al-Shabab’s quick evolution is the result of several factors, including foreign occupation, which historically radicalizes Somalia’s usually moderate form of Islam, and the availability of help from al-Qaeda, especially in the form of veteran fighters, who offer training and a leaven of combat experience, and media operatives whose expertise has dramatically improved the quality of al-Shabab media capabilities during the past two years. In addition, a substantial inflow of aid from Arab Peninsula countries who are nominally U.S. “allies” has allowed al-Shabab and other Somali Islamists to deliver food and health services to destitute Somalis and improve their weaponry.

Having helped destroy the less radical Islamic Courts regime and still backing the moribund TFG, Washington now confronts the potential of al-Shabab controlling two thirds of Somalia and — after the Uganda bombing — the specter of the group slowly destabilizing heretofore reliably pro-U.S. regimes in Ethiopia, Kenya, and elsewhere in East Africa.

Neither Ethiopia nor Kenya is as stable as it was before the Islamic Courts were destroyed. Ethiopia paid a high price for its invasion and occupation of Somalia not only in terms of funds and lives, but in earning the durable enmity of Somali Muslims and their Islamist allies in Africa and overseas. Kenya has likewise earned al-Shabab’s wrath for supporting the corrupt TFG regime and for its willingness to host the dozen or more UN agencies and multiple Western NGOs who are operating in Somalia with intentions that are perceived by many Somalis as anti-Islamic.

And here is where al-Qaeda is luring the United States into another potentially disastrous intervention. Even though it has expended a minimum and mainly media-focused effort to support al-Shabab, Washington’s abject fear of al-Qaeda — notwithstanding Obama’s cocky and denigrating words about the group — has made bin Laden’s al-Shabab ally a primary U.S. target and therefore yet another vehicle for luring America into an expensive fight on Muslim territory.

Even before all the causalities from the bombing were counted, for example, the FBI had sent investigators to the “crime scene” in Kampala — as if the Ugandans need help from the helpless — and yesterday Rudyard Obama said he would “redouble” U.S. efforts in Somalia, which certainly means more U.S. military involvement there and the pouring of more taxpayer money into the maw of the corrupt-to-the-bone TFG. And as it becomes clear that Ethiopian and Kenyan security are also threatened by al-Shabab, those countries too will be the recipients of Mr. Obama’s resolute eagerness to dig us ever deeper into expensive, Bush-like foreign adventures.

Overall, Bush and Obama took a problem that was on the periphery of top U.S. security issues and through mindlessness and intervention made it an agent of destabilization in East Africa and a growing drain on U.S. resources. Renewed U.S. efforts against al-Shabab, together with Washington’s efforts to undermine the Muslim government of Sudan and get U.S. military forces involved in the irrelevant-to-America Darfur civil war, will again do al-Qaeda’s work for it by validating for Muslims bin Laden’s claim that Washington intends to destroy all Muslim regimes except those of the Arab tyrants who supply oil to the United States and its allies.

Years ago Osama bin Laden said something akin to: “All we need to do is send two mujahedin anywhere on earth to wave a flag that has ‘al-Qaeda’ on it and the Americans will arrive the next day with their troops and an open wallet.” As Obama hungrily gobbles down this latest lure from al-Qaeda, one can only think that there truly is a sucker born every minute.
[End of copy]

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Further Reading

Clooney Falling Into Bin Laden’s Sudan Trap
Source: FOX News - http://nation.foxnews.com
Date: Monday, 03 January 2011. Full copy (excluding 271 Comments):

With the U.S. government and such scintillating strategic thinkers as George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Angelina Jolie, and Mia Farrow in the lead, the West is about to help rip Darfur and the rest of Muslim Sudan's oil-rich southern territories out of the country and create an independent, largely Christian state.

Under the guise of a "referendum" (set for 9 January 2011) that will be observed by a 110-person European Union team of imperial busybodies, Sudan's primarily Christian south will be severed from the Sudanese nation-state, setting the stage for a continuation of the decades old Muslim-Christian Sudanese civil war. The difference will be that henceforth - as is occurring in Somalia - the U.S. and the West will be obliged to protect the new nation they created by theft and oil lust with diplomacy, funding, arms, military training, and eventually troops.

And what is America's interest in becoming involved to the hilt and inextricably in Sudan? What is so vital to the United States in Sudan that President Obama is pressing the leaders of Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and the other states of the African Union to support "our intense interest in having a successful referendum" - read that as "our intense interest in carving up Sudan to suit our imperial purposes and corner access to Sudanese oil." (As an aside, one must admit Rudyard Obama is nothing if not an aggressive proponent of improving - that is, "Westernizing" - the lives of "our little brown brothers," although the blatant theft of Islamic land is a rather odd component for the kinder and more gentle "Muslim outreach program" Obama announced in Cairo and Jakarta.)

The answer is that Obama, our bipartisan political elite, the mainstream media, and the rich, immature, libertine, and anti-U.S. Hollywood set lead by Clooney, et al, want to feel good about themselves by doing "good" for foreigners. For these elite U.S. citizens-of-the-world, ordinary Americans and their kids can starve, freeze, live on the streets, fail to find work, and remain illiterate forever. In essence, they can rot while Washington spends their taxes on Darfur - a place where absolutely no genuine U.S. interest is at stake.

Now, that's a bit harsh and in one aspect even wrong. The Democrats and Republicans must ensure that ordinary Americans are kept well-off enough to keep having children who will join the U.S. military that will be used to fight the wars their interventionism start. And there can be no doubt that Washington's leading role in championing Darfur's secession from Sudan will intensify America's war with Islam and the evolving Islam-vs-Christianity war in Africa. And, not surprisingly, the ever-adept Osama bin Laden began setting this trap for the United States over the course of the last decade.

Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Abu Yaha al-Libi, one of al-Qaeda's leading theologians, have spoken publicly and on multiple occasions about Washington's intention to intervene in Somalia and Sudan to halt the spread of Sunni Islam in the Horn of Africa; to eliminate the Islamic regime in Sudan; to champion the spread of Christianity in Africa; and to ensure Sudan's massive oil reserves are in pro-U.S. hands. Obama's administration, with full Republican support, is about to make these three al-Qaeda leaders appear omniscient to the Muslim world.

READ THE FULL STORY AT NON-INTERVENTION.COM [By Michael Scheuer entitled "U.S. intervention in Sudan and Somalia: Sowing war’s whirlwind for Americans" published Wednesday, 29 December 2010]

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Postscript from Uganda Watch editor
Note the following copy of two quotations published in the sidebar of Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention.com:

My policy has been and will continue to be ... to be on friendly terms with, but independent of, all nations on earth. To share in the broils of none. To supply their wants, and be carriers for them all; being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so; and that nothing short of self-respect, and that justice which is essential to a national character, ought to involve us in war.
George Washington

Don't patronize the enemy. They mean business. They mean every word they say. They're killing us now. Their will is not broken, They mean it. ... If they're there, your job is to kill them all. I did not want to have them just retreat and have to fight them all over again.
Maj. Gen. James Mattis, USMC

Also, note that according to Michael Scheuer's About page, he resigned from the CIA in November, 2004 and since that date has written for Antiwar.com and LewRockwell.com.
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Follow news from Sudan at this site's parent blog, Sudan Watch http://sudanwatch.blogspot.com

URGENT MESSAGE - Shocking video of Ugandan terror group Lord's Resistance Army hunting children in Sudan

ONE of the world's most brutal terrorist groups, Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), is on the move from the Congo, terrorising civilians.

The below copied report from TIME.com, Tuesday, 07 September 2010, contains a shocking video entitled "The Lord's Resistance Army Hunts Children in Sudan".

Click here (and wait for end of short advert) to hear Ed Robbins reporting for Time.com from Western Equatoria State, southern Sudan.

Please replay the video and listen carefully to a message for everyone. The message is from a deeply traumatised Sudanese boy. The boy's name is Moses. Moses was abducted, attacked, hurt all over, and stabbed with a bayonet, by LRA terrorists. The terrorists forced Moses to kill a young girl. The girl was aged 7 or 8. If he did not kill the girl, they would kill him. The heart wrenching message from Moses says:

"I'M ASKING EVERYONE PLEASE, PRAY TO MAKE IT END"

Replay the video again and imagine yourself as Moses. The flat deadened tone of his voice is haunting. After viewing the report for the first time yesterday and working on it today at Uganda Watch, Sudan Watch and Congo Watch, I can't get Moses out of my mind. His trauma seeped into my bones as I imagined how he must have felt, what his future holds, and how he will think and be haunted for the rest of his life. I find this report deeply distressing and disturbing. I cannot understand why so many people are powerless when it comes to stopping the LRA. How someone like Joseph Kony manages to stay alive is beyond my comprehension. The stresses and strains he has gone through in his lifetime are unimaginable. A living hell, I guess.

See further devastating reports and photos here below.
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Balancing Counterterrorism and Democracy in Uganda
TIME.com - Tuesday, 07 September 2010
By Ioannis Gatsiounis in Kampala, Uganda

Photo: Mourners bury Alice Kyalimpa, a victim of the July 11, 2010, terrorist attacks that tore through a restaurant and rugby club in Uganda's capital Ronald Kabuubi/Reuters. Source: TIME.com report September 07, 2010 "Balancing Counterterrorism and Democracy in Uganda". To view the report in full, click on the link above. If the report has moved, scroll to the end of this entry to read a full copy.

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LRA KILL 8 IN YAMBIO, W. EQUATORIA, S. SUDAN -
More Ugandan PDF forces to be deployed



WES Yambio: LRA Raid And Kill 8 citizens
Report from South Sudan Analysis (SOSA online) - Monday, 06 September 2010:

(YAMBIO) – Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have killed 8 people during weekend raids in Southern Sudan’s Western Equatoria state, a local official said.

Around 6 LRA fighters attacked the market village of Rii-Bodo on Saturday, killing 8 civilians, said Lexon Amozai, State Director of Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission in Western Equatoria State.

The horrifying murders come in the wake of an LRA ambush at a near-by small stream of Nahua.

On Friday the rebels launched a similar assault on the village of Gangura.

“They killed 8 people there, among them two women. There were no soldiers deployed there, so they attacked the civilians,” Mr Amozai said.

A Uganda-led coalition including Congo and South Sudan launched a joint offensive against LRA strongholds in Congo’s isolated Garamba National Park on December 14 after LRA leader Joseph Kony again failed to sign a deal to end his rebellion. However, the operation has failed to arrest Joseph Kony.

In the same weekend related attacks were carried on Sunday at James Diko and Naakiri Bomas under Bangasu payam during a final funeral of one of the LRA Victims.

Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes.

Bangasi Joseph Bakosoro, state governor of Western Equatoria state with deeply sorrow and regrets expressed his dissatisfaction for the death of 8 WES citizens of Rii-Bodo on Saturday.

In a press statement, Col Bangasi said that, “it is painful to see such barbaric killings by the notorious LRA fighters on the innocent citizens of western Equatoria more especially as referendum gets around the corner.”

He called upon all the youth to stand up in order to provide security to the state from the marauding LRA and the state Government in collaboration with the UPDF and SPLA.

Security sources say soon the state government “will deploy forces around the payams and Bomas.”

Bakosoro assured the citizens that, “more forces of the Ugandan People Defense (UPDF) forces will be deployed around the most attacked areas of the Bomas.”

He cautioned the forestry department to ensure that “all timber cutters are removed from the forest of the state because it makes no sense for the LRA to be killing people leaving them (timber companies) unharmed hence some might be spices of the LRA.”

Meanwhile the Minister of Local Government and Law Enforcement Agencies Colonel Wilson Sidigi said that he will ensure that support is given to the villagers’ security.

Sidigi promised that he will organize with the County Commissioners of Yambio and Nzara to encouraged the youth to stand firm as the security of the State is in the hands of every citizen of the state.

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LRA Kill Eight In Yambio
Report from SRS (Sudan Radio Service) - Tuesday, 07 September 2010:

(YAMBIO) – About eight people were killed in attacks allegedly perpetrated by the Lord’s Resistance Army over the weekend in outskirts of Yambio town.

The Western Equatoria state Minister of Information and Communication, Gibson Bullen Wande, spoke to SRS from Yambio on Tuesday.

[Gibson Bullen Wande]: “The LRA appeared between Gangura and a place called Baite, attacked the village and killed three people, so now we are seeing how we are going to handle it. Then on Saturday in the evening, the LRA appeared about 7 kilometers away from Yambio town in a place called Riibodoo. They came into the house of a chief with his in-laws. All of them were beaten to death and one person was abducted. So the total number of people that we have established to have been killed during the two attacks of last week has now come to eight so far.”

Gibson Bullen Wande was speaking to SRS from Yambio on Tuesday.

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LRA rebels kill eight in South Sudan raid, local official says
Report from Sudan Tribune online - Tuesday, 07 September 2010
By Richard Ruati - excerpt:

(YAMBIO - September 06, 2010) - The Ugandan rebels Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has killed eight people in raids over the weekend in South Sudan’s state of Western Equatoria, a local official has said.

The LRA, which is a sectarian religious and military group from northern Uganda, has a history of committing atrocities in the region.

It began as an Acholi tribe rebel movement seeking to overthrow the Ugandan Government. What it stands for now is a matter of debate but in 2005 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its first five arrest warrants for LRA leader, Joseph Kony, his deputy and three of his commanders.

Around six LRA fighters attacked the market village of Rii-Bodo at about 2:00 am (local time) on Saturday, 4 August, and killed civilians, said Lexon Amozai who is the state director of the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission in Western Equatoria State. The murders took place after an LRA ambush at the nearby Nahua stream.

On Friday, the rebels launched a similar assault on the village of Gangura. "They killed eight people there, among them two women. There were no soldiers deployed there, so they attacked the civilians," Amozai said.

A Uganda-led coalition including Congo and South Sudan launched a joint offensive against the LRA strongholds in Congo’s isolated Garamba National Park on December 14, after LRA leader Kony again failed to sign a peace deal. However, the operation has failed to arrest Kony.

On Sunday, August 5, related attacks were carried out in James Diko, Naakiri Bomas and during the funeral of one of the LRA victims in Bangasu. [...]

Security sources say that the state government’s deployment of "forces around the payams [villages] and Bomas,” is imminent.

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"I'M ASKING EVERYONE PLEASE, PRAY TO MAKE IT END"



Photo: Gulu victim. The LRA use torture to instil fear. Uganda's rebel LRA has become synonymous with torture, abductions and killings. (BBC photo/Sudan Watch archive)



Photo: Two young boy's get treated for severe burn wounds in the Lira hospital in northern Uganda, 23 February 2004, after a massacre believed to be committed by the LRA in the Barlonyo camp 26 kilometers north of the town that killed at least 200 people. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo/Sudan Watch archive)



Photo: Ochola John was deformed by rebels from the LRA. (BBC) Click here to read the victim's heartbreaking testimony published at BBC News online on 29 June 2006. If the report has moved, click here to read a copy filed on 30 June 2006 at Uganda Watch, a sister site of this blog Sudan Watch.



Photo: Leader of the LRA peace delegation Martin Ojul, left, is welcomed back home at Koch Goma in Amuru. (AP Photo) Source: Report from TIME.com - Saturday, 10 November 2007, by Alexis Okeowo in Gulu. Excerpt:

Sixteen years ago, Irene Abonyo was held down to the ground and her lips and ears viciously sliced off by rebels in northern Uganda. But 70-year old Abonyo is in a forgiving mood. She attended a steamy, overcrowded town-hall meeting to see, on better terms this time, one of the world's most terrifying rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). After a dialogue, she went over to shake the hand of a former LRA fighter. He held her hand, but refused to have his picture taken with the disfigured woman. "I will still forgive," Abonyo explains. "They are embarrassed of what they have done." Full story by Alexis Okeowo (Gulu, N. Uganda) published at TIME.com on Saturday, 10 November 2007: "Forgiving the Lord's Resistance Army"

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"I'M ASKING EVERYONE PLEASE, PRAY TO MAKE IT END"

Last month, Human Rights Watch said the LRA had killed more than 250 people in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo over the previous year and a half. It said nearly 700 others were kidnapped and forced to be either soldiers or sex slaves. Full story at Voice of America News (VOA) online, Tuesday, 07 September 2010: "LRA Kills 8 in Southern Sudan".



Photo: Southern Sudanese wait for food, shelter, security and medicine at the village of Nzara, along Sudan's border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, on 18 August 2010. Thousands have fled their nearby villages since a recent series of attacks by guerrilla fighters believed to be from the Lord's Resistance Army. (Peter Martell/AFP/Getty Images) Full story by Alan Boswell (Nzara, South Sudan) published at TIME.com on Tuesday, 31 August 2010: "The Ruthless Guerrilla Movement That Won't Die".
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Balancing Counterterrorism and Democracy in Uganda
Report from Time.com
By Ioannis Gatsiounis in Kampala, Uganda
Tuesday, 07 September 2010. Full copy:

U.S. President Barack Obama took office promising to make good governance the cornerstone of his African policy, and Uganda came to typify the shift in priorities. Repeated attempts by President Yoweri Museveni to meet with Obama were denied, apparently in response to Uganda's sluggish pace of political reform ahead of presidential elections in February. President Obama also directly challenged Museveni to lift his support for a draconian bill persecuting gays.

But just as the 9/11 attacks drew the U.S. closer to autocratic Arab regimes whose security services were needed to help fight al-Qaeda, so have the July 11 bombings of two Kampala nightspots by the Somalia-based al-Shabab militant group reminded the Obama Administration of Uganda's importance in the battle against extremism in the Horn of Africa. And that strategic interdependency challenges the U.S. democracy agenda. (See a video of the Lord's Resistance Army hunting children in Sudan.)

"Washington is now forced to do a balancing act," says Livingstone Sweanyana, executive director at the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative in Kampala. "If the U.S. is going to work with Museveni on al-Shabab, the U.S. can't afford to see or treat him as an unfriendly force."

U.S. officials insist that democratic reform still figures at the top of Washington's agenda in Uganda. But as Museveni's National Resistance Movement (NRM) has used the July 11 terror attacks as a pretext to shrink the political space, Washington's critique hasn't kept pace. Three days after the bombings, parliament passed a bill enabling phone-tapping. Weeks later, nationwide demonstrations demanding an independent election commission were violently suppressed on grounds that they could be exploited by terrorists. And the media have since been banned from commenting on the twin bombings. (Can Uganda forgive the Lord's Resistance Army?)

Following the crackdown on protests calling for an election commission, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson did say that security concerns were no justification for squelching dissent. Curiously, however, the previous day he told a reporter on the sidelines of an African Union (A.U.) summit in Kampala that Museveni had been "elected openly and transparently in free and fair elections," contradicting a 2006 State Department assessment that the polls had been "marred by serious irregularities." (See pictures of Uganda.)

The about-face may be driven by growing desperation. At the same A.U. summit, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that "ending the threat of al-Shabab to the world will take more than just law enforcement" and that Washington was therefore going to work closely "to support the African Union's [military] mission in Somalia [AMISOM]." Washington is looking to boost current troop levels from 8,000 — most of them from Burundi and Uganda — to 20,000. The problem is that few member states other than Uganda have volunteered to step up. Museveni, a former rebel leader, is reportedly prepared to mobilize that many troops on his own and has been leading calls to switch AMISOM's mandate from peacekeeping to peace enforcement.

"The U.S. is depending on Uganda to play a role in Somalia to rein in extremist forces," says James Tumusiime, managing editor of the opposition-leaning Observer weekly. "And in light of the attacks, the U.S. is probably beginning to think they're better off with a stable, functioning style of leadership in Uganda — someone who's not necessarily a democrat but a guy in control — rather than support change for democracy's sake."

U.S. diplomats in Kampala say much of their democracy-promotion work is low-key. One example is their success in persuading Uganda to put voter-registration lists online to allow the validation of voter identities. USAID invested around $2 million on democracy and governance programs last year, and that figure is expected to hit $10 million this year. Officials argue that security and democracy are mutually reinforcing.

But support for the key opposition demand of an independent election commission appears to be waning, says Wafula Oguttu, spokesperson for the leading opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). Recalling Washington's silence after the recent suppression of demonstrations — in which 80 people were arrested and some claimed to have been tortured — Oguttu says, "The U.S. likely would have spoken out against that prior to al-Shabab." Now the opposition is anxiously awaiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's quarterly report on Uganda, due late this month, after Congress ordered the State Department to tightly monitor Uganda's election process. "A lot of bad things have happened since May," says Oguttu, and he expects the report to reflect that fact.

The last such report, issued in May, irritated NRM leaders, but prompted no constructive action. Indeed the party's primary polls on Monday were marred by confusion and allegations of ballot-stuffing. Opposition groups hope that Washington will use its leverage as one of Uganda's leading aid donors to press for change. But they fear the U.S. lacks the resolve to press the issue, leaving Uganda's election process heavily skewed toward the ruling party.

Challenges to the legitimacy of the electoral process raise the danger of large-scale political violence, analysts warn. Last September, riots in Kampala left 17 people dead after the king of Buganda kingdom was prevented by Museveni from visiting a nearby district. (Comment on this story.)

"We have shown restraint so far," says the FDC's Oguttu. But if the mechanisms for free and fair elections fail to materialize, he says, "we're going to have a little bit of trouble." He predicts the youth will grow more vocal and could target the destruction of election-commission offices. Meanwhile, the opposition is mulling the option of boycotting February's elections. Whatever the case may be, he says, "expect fireworks." And a new round of political turmoil, of course, is unlikely to help promote either democracy or security.

Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2016175,00.html

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Uganda Watch Editor's Note: A similar version of the above was published earlier today (Wednesday, 08 September 2010) at this blog's parent site, Sudan Watch http://sudanwatch.blogspot.com and will be cross-posted today at its sister site Congo Watch http://congowatch.blogspot.com.

Somali-based terror group al Shabaab behind triple bombing that killed 76 in Kampala, Uganda is funded by al Qaeda

• Al Shabaab, the Somalia-based terror group that has claimed responsibility for July 11's triple suicide blasts that killed 76 people in Uganda's capital, Kampala, has in recent months built up Pakistan-style terror training camps.

• Intelligence officials say they believe al Qaeda is using al Shabaab as a symbiotic host body, allowing its operatives access to other African countries. "As much as we're looking at al Shabaab, they are riding on the back of a more experienced player," said Col. Herbert Mbonye, the director of counterterrorism for Uganda's military intelligence body.

• A U.S. intelligence official said information gleaned from militant communications shows links between al Shabaab and al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Yemen.

From The Wall Street Journal
By WILL CONNORS in Kampala, Uganda, SIOBHAN GORMAN in Washington, D.C., and SARAH CHILDRESS
Somali Militant Group Built Training Camps, al Qaeda Links

The terror group behind last weekend's deadly Uganda blasts recruited a local man to coordinate the attacks and received funds from al Qaeda, say investigators, as it extends its reach beyond lawless Somalia.

Al Shabaab, the Somalia-based group that has claimed responsibility for July 11's triple suicide blasts that killed 76 people in Uganda's capital, Kampala, has in recent months built up Pakistan-style terror training camps. One top leader, Sheikh Muktar Robow, has helped to transform the group from a local insurgency into a global jihadist organization modeled on, and swearing allegiance to, al Qaeda.

That picture of the group, and its development under Mr. Robow, emerged from interviews with Ugandan, Kenyan and U.S. investigators; current and former U.S. intelligence officials; and Somalis, including a member of the militant group.

A U.S. intelligence official said information gleaned from militant communications shows links between al Shabaab and al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Yemen. U.S. officials also see evidence of overlap in training and membership and say their working assumption is that al Shabaab has several hundred core members, similar to the numbers in al Qaeda in Pakistan and in al Qaeda's Yemeni outpost.

Intelligence officials say they believe al Qaeda is using the Somali group as a symbiotic host body, allowing its operatives access to other African countries. "As much as we're looking at al Shabaab, they are riding on the back of a more experienced player," said Col. Herbert Mbonye, the director of counterterrorism for Uganda's military intelligence body.

That relationship has raised red flags at U.S. intelligence agencies. In the past 18 months, militant training camps have emerged in Somalia similar to those that developed in Pakistan's tribal areas, a U.S. intelligence official said. Intelligence officials are now following about two dozen individuals from the U.S. and other Western countries who may have been affiliated with al Shabaab, or gone through these camps.

"It's quite an alarming story," the U.S. intelligence official said.

Al Shabaab's relationship with al Qaeda appears to have been cultivated in part by Mr. Robow, a top commander. Also known as Abu Mansur, he is among the U.S. government's most wanted terrorists.

Mr. Robow offered a warning of sorts ahead of Sunday's blasts, which hit a restaurant and a sports club where people had gathered to watch the final match of the World Cup. Speaking during a public address at Friday prayers earlier this month, Mr. Robow called for attacks against countries that had sent some 6,000 troops under African Union auspices to support the Somali government's offensive against al Shabaab. "We tell the Muslim youths and Mujahedeen, wherever they are in the Muslim world, to attack, explode and burn the embassies of Burundi and Uganda," Mr. Robow said, according to local media reports.

Mr. Robow grew up in southern Mogadishu as a devoted student of the Quran, according to public speeches he has made. He studied law at the University of Khartoum in Sudan, and then returned to Mogadishu to teach Arabic for several years. He is about 40, U.S. officials believe, based on a birth date on an Eritrean passport he used.

In 2000, Mr. Robow traveled to Afghanistan to train with the Taliban and al Qaeda, which used the strife-torn South Asian country to plot the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. In Afghanistan, Mr. Robow learned to fight, fire a sniper rifle and conceal roadside bombs, an al Shabaab official in Somalia said. He stayed less than a year, leaving before U.S.-led forces swept into Afghanistan.

Back in Somalia, Mr. Robow became a member of the Union of Islamic Courts, which aimed to establish strict Shariah law in the country, which had been largely lawless for a decade. The group came to power in 2006. Mr. Robow helped to establish an Islamist government and founded al Shabaab, a youth brigade that would serve as the union's armed wing.

The Islamist government soon collapsed. Al Shabaab endured. Mr. Robow, a skilled orator, became an al Shabaab spokesman and eventually deputy commander.

Al Shabaab, which controls vast territory in Somalia, has been engaged in a running battle with Somalia's transitional federal government. The group has pinned the government to a strip of the capital, Mogadishu, and largely prevented officials and parliament from meeting.

Beyond his ambition to overthrow Somalia's government, Mr. Robow has advocated linking the group's ambitions to global jihad. Through media interviews and in videos posted online, he sought to attract fighters in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iraq, largely because foreign recruits could replenish al Shabaab's ranks and aid its finances. In a 2008 interview, he lamented that there "are not enough non-Somali brothers."

The same year, the U.S. Treasury Department declared al Shabaab a terrorist group and named Mr. Robow its "spiritual leader." Mr. Robow later released a statement saying the group was "honored" to be included on the list but expressed disappointment al Shabaab wasn't ranked higher.

Senior U.S. administration officials said some foreign fighters who answered Mr. Robow's calls—some of whom have "close links" with al Qaeda—came with experience, funding and the agenda of establishing Somalia as a base from which to attack Western targets.

The foreigners also brought new tactics. Roadside bombs and suicide blasts, once unheard-of in Somalia, are now part of al Shabaab's armory. The group's commanders have banned dancing, mustaches and, most recently, watching World Cup games on television. Fighters punish offenders with floggings or public amputations.

On Wednesday, armed al Shabaab fighters drove through towns in southern Somalia, blaring a warning to residents through megaphones mounted on their vehicles, according to witnesses contacted by telephone. "You must collaborate with [us] and allow your sons to fight the enemy of Allah," Abu Maryama, a senior al Shabaab official told crowds in the southwestern town of Baidoa. "If you pay no heed to this … you will be considered as another enemy and face punishment."

Harsh retribution and indiscriminate deaths have sapped public support for the group, and created rifts within it. Mr. Robow has been caught between those who want to focus the insurgency in Somali—and retain a measure of popular support— and the global jihadists who don't care about local backing, according the al Shabaab colleague. Mr. Robow, a Somali who has long opposed foreign intervention in his country, may not be considered radical enough for the new agenda, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels based think tank.In the Uganda attack, the group's two factions apparently found middle ground.

The blasts have presented U.S. officials with a quandary. They see a need to step up support and involvement in the region, but they haven't determined the best course. "Violence always breeds urgency," the U.S. intelligence official said. "The question is: What [to do]?"The U.S. has been tracking al Shabaab and al Qaeda in Somalia for years, officials say. The Central Intelligence Agency works with military special forces units to collect intelligence and pinpoint targets, a former senior intelligence official said. The U.S. also works closely with the Ethiopian and Kenyan governments on counterterrorism operations.

Those efforts have grown in recent years as U.S. officials discovered as many as 20 Americans from Minnesota making their way to Somalia, including one who was determined to have been among five suicide bombers in an October 2008 attack in northern Somalia.

The intelligence-gathering paid off last year when U.S. Special Forces killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a top operative linked to both al Qaeda and al Shabaab who was believed to be linked to 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

But U.S. Special Forces units and intelligence officials have been grappling with a broader response to the growing terror threat from Somalia. Calling in airstrikes could fuel retaliatory measures against a weak Somali government. It could also stir up anti-U.S. sentiment that would advance the group's agenda, said the U.S. intelligence official.

"If you strike a camp, it makes you feel good, but what do you do the next day?" the official said. "You don't effectively eliminate the threat."

On Thursday, an al Shabaab leader underscored that point, delivering a message on the radio in Mogadishu congratulating what he called the Martyr Saleh Nabhan Brigade for the Kampala attacks.

Intelligence agencies have warned about al Shabaab's growing ambition to attack other countries—particularly Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya—as well as the West, the U.S. intelligence official said.U.S. intelligence hadn't picked up many direct threats against Uganda, but there has been a general concern about attacks targeting countries that supply troops to A.U. forces.

Investigators in Uganda say they are questioning a Ugandan man, Ali Isa Ssenkumba, who they say has confessed to helping plan the attacks.

Mr. Ssenkumba, who is in his late thirties and hails from a farming community outside Kampala, told investigators he was recruited by Somali men who persuaded him that he could have success in business in Somalia, according to a Ugandan military official close to the investigation.

Posing as a businessman, Mr. Ssenkumba made frequent trips to Somalia, where he attended an al Shabaab training camp, the Ugandan official said. Mr. Ssenkumba told investigators many other Ugandans are at al Shabaab's Somalia training facilities.

This person says Mr. Ssenkumba become familiar with guards at the borders between Uganda and Sudan and Uganda and Kenya, and received money and coordinated logistics for roughly two dozen al Shabaab members in Uganda who are suspected of plotting the triple suicide blast. Mr. Ssenkumba said, and investigators say they separately determined, that the attack was partially funded by informal money transfers from al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Police in Kenya said they arrested Mr. Ssenkumba last week, before the attack, and handed him over to Ugandan investigators Tuesday, after the bombings.

According to Nicholas Kamwende, the commanding officer of Kenya's anti-terrorism police unit, Mr. Ssenkumba walked up to an immigration officer on the Kenya-Somalia border some time before the Kampala attacks and turned himself in.

"He said he didn't want to stay any longer with al Shabaab, that he wanted to go home," Mr. Kamwende said. "We didn't have anything to hold him on and we thought the Ugandans would be in a better position to exploit what he knew."

Mr. Ssenkumba wasn't made available to comment and it wasn't immediately apparent whether he was represented by a lawyer. Neither Mr. Kamwende nor Ugandan officials would say whether Mr. Ssenkumba provided information before the impending attack.Ugandan officials say Mr. Ssenkumba didn't turn himself in voluntarily.

—Nicholas Baryio in Kampala and Keith Johnson
in Washington contributed to this article.
Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com

Over 50 dead as three bomb blasts rock Ugandan capital Kampala, terrorist attack possible: official

Photo from Daily Monitor: Some of those injured in the bomb blast at Kyaddondo Rugby grounds in Kampala – Photo by Wandera Ouma

50 die in Kampala bomb blasts
From Daily Monitor by Alex B. Atuhaire & Andrew Bagala
Monday, July 12 2010 at 02:06:

(Kampala) - More than 50 people have been killed in three separate bomb blasts in the Ugandan capital – Kampala as the residents watched the 2010 World Cup final on giant screens.

Police confirmed that 13 people, more than half of them foreigners were killed at Ethiopian Village Restaurant in Kabalagala, a Kampala suburb, while Daily Monitor reporters counted about 40 bodies at Kyaddondo rugby grounds where a huge crowd was watching the Spain Vs Netherlands Word Cup final.

Another blast was reported to have gone off in Ntinda, another Kampala surburb, as more than 100 were reported admitted in hospitals and clinics in the capital including the national referral hospital - Mulago.

Over 40 dead as two bomb blasts rock Ugandan capital, terrorist attack possible: official
From xinhuanet.com:

KAMPALA, 12 July 2010 (Xinhua) -- More than 40 people are feared dead after two bomb explosions rocked Kampala, Uganda's capital, on Sunday night, according to a local official.

"Over 40 people could have been killed in the blasts," said Moses Sakira, deputy director of Criminal Investigation Department. He said almost all of the victims were adults.

Uganda's New Vision website put the death toll at at least 33.

"We cannot rule out the terrorist attack possibility now," said Sakira. "It might be possible."

The Somali militia warned to launch attacks targeting civilians in Uganda, which had sent peacekeeping troops to the war-battered Somalia.

But the country's army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said it is still too early to know whether Somali militia were behind the bomb attacks as security forces just started the investigation at the scene.

According to the New Vision website, one explosion targeted the Kyadondo Rugby Club. The blasts occurred minutes after 11 p.m..

Blood, broken chairs, clothes and shoes were seen on the ground at the scene. Security soldiers and rescuers were evacuating and saving the wounded.

The scene has been cordoned off.

A witness who gave his name as Klaus told Xinhua that hundreds of local people were watching the World Cup final in front of a big projector at the club as the blast occurred.

The other blast was reported at the Ethiopian village, in the Kabalagala. The New Vision said a third blast was reported in Ntinda, which the local police did not confirm.

Uganda blasts 'deplorable, cowardly,' says Obama
(AFP) – 35 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama called the deadly explosions that ripped through two restaurants in the Ugandan capital Kampala on Sunday "deplorable and cowardly," a spokesman said.

"The president is deeply saddened by the loss of life resulting from these deplorable and cowardly attacks, and sends his condolences to the people of Uganda and the loved ones of those who have been killed or injured," National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said in a statement.

"The United States is ready to provide any assistance requested by the Ugandan government."

A senior administration official said the United States was in contact with its embassy in Kampala and was in touch with the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding requests for assistance from Uganda's government.

At least 23 people were killed in the explosions as crowds watched the World Cup football final, police said.

One blast hit an Ethiopian restaurant in the south of the capital and the other was at a rugby sports club in the east of Kampala, police chief Kale Kayihura told reporters.

"These bombs were definitely targeting World Cup crowds," Kayihura said.

FURTHER REPORTS

Bombs explode at sites in Uganda, 20 deaths feared

Atlanta Journal Constitution - Godfrey Olukya - ‎1 hour ago‎

At Least 23 Killed in Uganda Blasts

Voice of America - ‎1 hour ago‎

AF APNewsAlert

The Associated Press - ‎1 hour ago‎

Deadly blasts hit Ugandan capital

Aljazeera.net - ‎1 hour ago‎

Uganda capital blasts 'kill 23'

BBC News - ‎2 hours ago‎

Explosions rock Ugandan capital, 23 dead: police

Reuters Canada - Richard Lough, Angus MacSwan - ‎2 hours ago‎

Al-Shabab: Somali group with Al-Qaeda ties threatens Israel, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sudan, Uganda and Kenya

A militant Islamic group associated with al Qaeda has threatened to attack Israel, far from its normal base of operations in Somalia. CNN writes that Al-Shabab, which is fighting to control the east African country, accused Israel of “starting to destroy” the Al Aqsa mosque, where standoffs have recently been taking place between Israeli police and Palestinians.

The mosque is part of the complex that Jews called the Temple Mount and Muslims call Haram al-Sharif. The group also threatened other African nations on Friday, including Ethiopia, Ghana, Sudan, Uganda and Kenya.

Source: Afrik.com Monday 2 November 2009 - Somalia: Somali group with Al-Qaeda ties threatens Israel, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sudan, Uganda and Kenya

Uganda tightens security following Al-Shabab threat

Ugandan forces say they are keeping a close eye on the Somali community in Kampala, following threats by Somalia's al-Shabab militants to attack the Ugandan capital. A nationwide registration drive has begun in Uganda, aimed at keeping track of Somali refugees and new arrivals.

Full report from Voice of America
By Alisha Ryu (Nairobi) 27 October 2009
Uganda Tightens Security Following Al-Shabab Threat

This still image provided by SITE, an organization which monitors Islamist websites, from a video entitled 'At Your Service Osama' released 20 Sep 2009, shows Abu Mansur al-Amriki (R) teaching mujahedeen small unit tactics

The Ugandan government has reportedly deployed elite security forces, including the country's paramilitary anti-terrorism unit, in and around the suburb of Kisenyi, home for many Somalis living in Kampala.

Uganda's Foreign Affairs Minister Okello Oryem says the government's military intelligence service agents are also on the lookout for suspects and guarding potential targets throughout the capital.

"Amongst the communities, they might be able to live and mix in," he said. "So, our intelligence services are working around the clock to determine whether the threats are real, practical in Uganda."

The heightened security is in response to threats made on Friday by al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked insurgent group that is fighting to overthrow Somalia's U.N.-backed government in Mogadishu.

Troops from Uganda and Burundi make up the roughly 5,000-member peacekeeping force in Somalia known as AMISOM.  The troops are responsible for protecting the government and key sites in Mogadishu from insurgent attacks. Al-Shabab vowed to destroy the capitals of Uganda and Burundi in revenge for more than two dozen civilian deaths last week, allegedly caused by AMISOM troops indiscriminately targeting insurgents in Mogadishu.

Somali leaders and clan elders in Kampala say they are taking al-Shabab's threat seriously and they have volunteered to help authorities identify people who may pose a security threat.

A senior Somali community leader, Abdullahi Hassan Roble, tells VOA that many people in his community of about 8,000 are deeply concerned that an al-Shabab attack on Ugandan soil will bring years of unwanted attention and harassment.

"We do not want this problem to happen here in Uganda," he explained. "We are very worried about it. So, we support the government and work with the government. [If] we see those people, we [will] report them."

With the help of Ugandan security agencies, community leaders have begun registering all Somali visitors and refugees in Kampala and elsewhere. Identity cards are also being issued, and Roble warns those moving about the country without identity cards may be arrested and detained.

Al-Shabab has already issued several threats against Uganda's neighbor, Kenya. The latest was issued earlier this month amid reports that the Kenyan government was recruiting soldiers to fight on the side of the Somali government.

Al-Shabab, which began about six years ago as a homegrown radical Islamist movement, has been growing in power and influence in recent years. The group has claimed responsibility for carrying out numerous car and roadside bombings, as well as assassinations throughout Somalia.