Six people were killed, including three suicide bombers, in two bombings on Tuesday in the Ugandan capital Kampala. Such terrorist attacks have been taking place in Uganda for several weeks now. In neighboring eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, victims are beheaded in attacks on villages. The perpetrators are said to be fighters linked to Islamic State (IS). Tuesday’s attacks were claimed by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group that claims to be cooperating with Islamic State.
1 What does ADF want?
More than 100 rebel groups are active in eastern Congo. In this kaleidoscope of battle groups, ADF is one of the largest. The group has been operating in the area around the Congolese city of Beni since the early 1990s and killed 800 civilians last year, according to the United Nations. Originally a radical Islamic Ugandan rebel group, it has been anchored for many years in the Congolese network of financial-military interests and active in lucrative border smuggling.
Few Muslims live in Eastern Congo. ADF is therefore not on an Islamic crusade, nor does it control the territory. Tribal sentiments are a driver, as are commercial considerations. Congo is a robbery state with a weak and corrupt government. Taking advantage of the disorder, Congolese politicians, smugglers, chieftains and neighboring countries deploy militias for self-interest.
2Why is Uganda a target?
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni sees his country as a bulwark against advancing radical Muslims. At the end of the last century he sent his army to neighboring South Sudan for that purpose. Ugandan soldiers are also fighting in Somalia against the terrorist group Al Shabaab. Amaq, the IS news agency, in a statement on Tuesday cited the Ugandan presence in Somalia as the reason for the attacks.
3 Do these attacks show that IS is active in Central Africa?
Visiting the Congo, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres portrayed ADF this summer as “part of a jihadist network stretching from Libya to Mozambique”. Washington put ADF on its terror list in March as the Islamic State Democratic Republic of the Congo (IS-DRC) and then sent a handful of special troops on a short fact-finding mission to eastern Congo.
Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi, welcoming the US counter-terrorist team, said it will “provide support to the national army in the fight against terrorism and to the guards of Virunga and Garamba National Parks, which have become a haven for terrorist forces” .
4 Is there evidence that ADF has been taken over by IS?
New. The disorderly area around Beni at the foot of the Ruwenzori Mountains, where ADF has been present for years, is certainly ideal for extremist groups like IS, who like to operate in areas of limited government control. But whether IS has actually settled here is controversial.
Nelleke van de Walle, expert for the Great Lakes region of the International Crisis Group think tank, has her doubts. “There is no IS command or IS control over ADF. We do see that factions have arisen within ADF and that contact has been sought with IS since 2017. One faction under Seka Baluku now says it is loyal to IS,” she said in Nairobi, referring to Ugandan militant Musa Seka Baluku.
The United Nations and the United States regard Baluku as the leader of ADF. The United States put him on the terrorist list in March.
5 A group of United Nations experts wrote in a report late last year that they were unable to establish any direct links between IS and ADF. Is that still sustainable?
Van de Walle: “I endorse what the UN experts say. But we have been seeing more foreign fighters within ADF for a few years now. Now also from Mozambique, from Chad and Kenya. It is more mixed than before, when ADF mainly consisted of Ugandans and Congolese. Arrested ADF fighters tell about foreigners who visited their camps. That could show that a different kind of ADF may have emerged. I am not saying, as the Americans do, that there is now an IS-DRC. But now is a good time to see if there are stronger ties to IS than we initially assumed.”
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