Grace Matsiko
1 December 2007
Kampala — LOCAL security agencies say they foiled plans by suspected terrorists with links to al-Qaeda to lob bombs into venues used for last week's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala.
In one of the planned attacks, the Allied Democratic Forces led by Mr Jamil Mukulu wanted to use the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation Outside Broadcasting vans to deliver bombs at functions attended by the Queen and other heads of state and government.
Although it is not clear when and how the intelligence services discovered the plot, reports of the possible attack touched off frenetic security checks on the two OB vans that were being used to broadcast the Chogm events.
Those checks, say UBC officials, partly explain the broadcaster's failure to transmit live pictures of some of the Chogm events. The most lamented by the public was UBC's failure to transmit live the Queen's historic address to Parliament on November 22.
UBC was the official Chogm broadcaster.
According to members of the Chogm national security committee, who could only speak anonymously given the sensitivity of the matter, suspected terrorists wanted to use the UBC vans because they were the only vehicles other than those used by the dignitaries that were allowed access to key Chogm venues.
Military Spokesman Felix Kulayigye said that there were indeed "credible threats by the ADF" to carry out terrorist attacks during Chogm.
"We expected threats from ADF," Maj. Kulayigye said. "We took precautionary measures before anything bad happened. Remember al-Qaeda in Somalia had warned us, so we had to be on high alert."
He, however, said that details of how security foiled the attacks were classified information. A week before Chogm, a Somali Islamist commander, Mr Aden Hashi Ayrow, thought to be al-Qaeda's main man in Mogadishu, ordered his fighters to attack the 1,500-strong Ugandan peacekeeping contingent in Somalia.
"To us, the Ugandans, Ethiopians and Americans are all the same," he said, "they have invaded us and I am telling the Mujahidin [fighters] Ugandans must be one of our priorities."
ADF chief Mukulu trained in Sudan when al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was based there in the mid-'90s. He also trained in Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda base. He launched his first strike against Uganda in 1996 - the year bin Laden left Sudan for Afghanistan - in Buseruka in Hoima District.
Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura could not be reached for comment because he was reported to be travelling out of the country.
The Chogm security committee was variously chaired by Maj. Gen. Kayihura and Chief of Defence Forces Aronda Nyakairima. It brought together representatives from the various security agencies.
An attack on Chogm in Kampala would have been devastating. The city played host to 16 Presidents and 20 Prime Ministers. Some 12 other countries were represented at very high levels. In all there were some 48 high-value targets for al-Qaeda to attack, let alone thousands of foreigners. The Commonwealth is made up of 53 countries.
Although Maj. Kulayigye and Police Spokesman Asan Kasingye said they were not aware that any terrorist group planned to use UBC vans to deliver bombs at Chogm functions, security sources said that after the authorities received believable intelligence about the ADF plans, the elite Presidential Guard Brigade launched a 24-hour security monitoring of the vans. PGB spokesman Edison Kwesiga said that the vans were under guard but did not say if the action was prompted by fears that the vehicles were being targeted to deliver bombs.
"The vans were under guard for security reasons," Lt. Kwesiga said and hang up on the telephone.
In other precautionary measures, the security committee closed some roads to regular traffic, erected high density concrete barriers on other roads leading to Chogm venues to slow down vehicles, introduced new number plates for the delegates' cars, and deployed the military alongside the police.
Because of the attack threats, the security committee decided that equipment such as that used for television coverage be sent for checking the previous day, November 21, to Parliament where the Queen was to address the MPs.
UBC Managing Director Mugasa Musinguzi declined to comment on this point.
But earlier he blamed PGB and a lack of money for the shoddy live coverage of the royal address. The PGB denied the accusations that its agents, worried about security, interfered with UBC's ability to carry out its functions through intrusive checks.
"The UBC team was not denied access [to the chamber of Parliament where the address took place]," said Maj. Kulayigye. "If they were denied, how come they were able to telecast events outside Parliament? I was right inside the UBC van [and] I heard the engineers complain that they were experiencing technical problems."
Mr Musinguzi said UBC did not get any funding for Chogm-related activities despite having presented a budget of Shs1.2 billion.
But UBC Board Chairman Chris Katuramu said whereas Globecast was hired to run the Chogm media centre, the responsibility of the Queen's coverage was in the hands of UBC because hers was a state visit and so the question of payment could not arise. In covering the Queen, the UBC staff were doing their normal work for which they deserved no special pay.
In the last 18 months, Daily Monitor has established, UBC was given Shs4.5 billion to upgrade its equipment but management preferred to spend it on the renovation of the former Radio Uganda complex where the corporation is now located.
Our investigations also show that whereas BBC TV complied with the directive that the equipment should be at Parliament by 8 p.m. the previous day, UBC did not. By 8:30 a.m. on Thursday the UBC vans were still at the Sheraton Hotel under PGB guard instead of being at Parliament where the Queen was to speak a couple of hours later.
The two vans also had one driver who absconded at the last minute forcing officials to draft in a volunteer who drove one of the vans, under guard, to Parliament. Also, whereas other departments conducted rehearsals, UBC did not for unclear reasons.
And then at the last minute UBC engineers led by Mr John Luggya found that their equipment was not quite incompatible with the equipment at Parliament.
To its credit, however, the UBC successfully covered live the opening sessions of earlier Chogm events such as the Youth Forum, the Business Forum, and the People's Forum.
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