KAMPALA: Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab Thursday vowed further attacks to follow two deadly bombings in Uganda, as Kampala said it would send more troops to boost the African Union force in Mogadishu.
The bomb attacks on crowded entertainment spots in Kampala where crowds were watching the World Cup final on Sunday killed at least 73 people and underscored the risk posed by the Somali rebel movement to the entire region.
"What happened in Kampala is just the beginning," elusive Shebab leader Mohamed Abdi Godane, also known as Abu Zubayr, said in an audio message broadcast on several Mogadishu radio stations.
The Shebab — fighting Somalia’s Western-backed transitional government — say the blasts were in retaliation for the presence of more than 3,000 Ugandan troops in the embattled African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
"We are telling all Muslims and particularly the people of Mogadishu that those martyred in AMISOM shelling will be avenged," he added.
Godane said the Kampala attacks were carried out by a Shebab unit named the Saleh Nabhan Brigade, after a Kenyan-born Al-Qaeda operative suspected in 2002 anti-Israeli attacks in Mombasa and killed in a suspected US air raid last year.
Uganda’s army spokesman said Thursday that the country could provide 2,000 more soldiers for the AU force, following a decision earlier this month by a regional body to bring AMISOM to its full strength of 8,100.
"We are capable of providing the required force if other countries fail to do so," spokesman Felix Kulayigye told AFP. "I should say, however, that I think it is appropriate that other countries contribute."
In early 2007, Uganda became the first country to dispatch troops to AMISOM, a force which remains the main obstacle preventing the Shebab from seizing full control of the capital.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni vowed Wednesday to "eliminate" the Somali masterminds behind the Kampala bombings.
The Kampala attacks, the deadliest in the region since the 1998 bombings against the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, spoiled the continent’s World Cup party and drew a barrage of international condemnation.
Analysts said the Kampala attacks further raised the Shebab’s profile in the global jihad as an organisation with regional appeal and scope but that their immediate objective was to force an AMISOM withdrawal.
But Uganda, which is hosting the African Union’s heads of state summit in less than two weeks, was defiant and urged its neighbours to demonstrate the same commitment in battling the Shebab.
With fewer than 7,000 troops on the ground, AMISOM has enabled the tenuous survival of Somalia’s Western-backed President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed but failed to weaken the insurgents.
"We can join to build up the strength of that force to 20,000 so that working with the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia we can eliminate the terrorists," Museveni said Wednesday.
"We were just in Mogadishu to guard the port, the airport and the State House. Now they have mobilized us to look for them," he said.
"We are going to go on the offensive for all those who did this."
The army’s Kulayigye explained that in order to deliver on a promise to deploy 2,000 more troops, IGAD (Inter-Governmental Authority on Development) should scrap a rule preventing bordering nations from contributing soldiers.
Uganda and Sudan are the regional body’s only member states not to share a border with Somalia.
"I think, given the current circumstances, it is appropriate to consider doing away with that provision," he said.
Meanwhile, Ugandan investigators Thursday were still trying to determine the exact circumstances of Sunday’s attacks in Kampala and the identities of all the victims.
A senior official said Wednesday that at least one of the blasts was detonated by a suicide bomber while police said they had already arrested six suspects.
