Dead passenger in Uganda bus explosion was a terrorist, says Museveni
The bus that was hit by a explosion in Mpigi District, Uganda on October 25, 2021. The explosion killed two people.
Kampala,
President Yoweri Museveni has said that a 23-year-old man who died in a bus explosion in Mpigi District yesterday was a terrorist.
Isaac Matovu, a resident of Wakiso District in the Central Region of Uganda, died in an explosion on a bus belonging to Swift Safaris Bus Company at Lungala, along the Kampala-Masaka highway.
“This is to inform you that the person who died in the Ishaka-bound bus yesterday, was a terrorist by the name of Muzafala, but also calling himself Isaac Matovu,” President Museveni tweeted on Tuesday.
Matovu was in the company of another suspected terrorist who disembarked the bus at Maya village, police say.
“He disembarked after telling the driver and conductor that he had to process some travel documents for his trip outside Uganda. We are hunting for him,” police spokesperson, Mr Enanga Enanga, told journalists in Kampala.
The bus was transporting 52 passengers from Kampala to Ishaka in Bushenyi District. 50 of the travelers escaped unhurt.
According to police, Matovu alias Mustapha alias Muzafala, has been on the country's terror watchlist.
“We found a detonator, ball bearings and some wires on his seat after the explosion,” Mr Enanga said moments before President Museveni started tweeting on Tuesday.
The Head of State said Matovu was part of the Pader group that had allegedly been sent by ADF to blow up mourners during the funeral of the late deputy IGP Maj. Gen Paul Lokech.
The bus explosion happened just hours after the Islamic State (IS) on Monday claimed responsibility for a deadly weekend bombing at a pork joint in Komamboga, a northern suburb of Kampala, that police called an 'act of domestic terrorism.'
Investigators said a 20-year-old woman was killed and three others injured in the Saturday evening blast.
In 2010, twin bombings in Kampala targeting fans watching the World Cup final left 76 people dead.
Somalia's Al-Shabaab militant group claimed responsibility for the blasts at a restaurant and at a rugby club.
The attack, the first outside Somalia by Al-Shabaab, was seen as revenge for Uganda sending troops to the war-torn country as part of an African Union mission to confront the insurgents.
President Museveni on Sunday vowed that those responsible for the latest attack would be caught and expressed condolences to those killed and injured.
