Oil and Jihad in Central Africa: The Rise and Fall of Uganda�s ADF
Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 5 Issue: 24 December 20, 2007 Terrorism Monitor, Africa By: Andrew McGregor
In the midst of all the horrors generated in Central Africa by the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the collapse of Zaire in 1997, a little known group of Islamist radicals has done its own part to contribute to the suffering. Based since 1996 in Bundibugyo, an impoverished and underdeveloped district in western Uganda, the Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF) has killed thousands in its pursuit of an Islamic state in Uganda...
Once in western Uganda, the ADF formed an alliance with the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU), a rebel group that had become fairly inactive. NALU was formed in 1988 and split from the Rwenzori Movement in 1991 [1]. NALU tactics typically involved raids on small villages and attacks on civilians, including a 1998 suicide bombing on a Kampala bus that killed 30. Eventually the ADF was also joined by remnants of the Rwenzori separatist movement and a number of Idi Amin loyalists who were living in the south Sudan...
ADF leader Jamil Mukulu was an associate of Osama bin Laden during the latter�s stay in Sudan in the 1990s, before launching his first attack in Uganda in 1996. Mukulu is believed to have received training from al-Qaeda both in Sudan and Afghanistan (Monitor, December 1). The ADF leader remains a shadowy figure, usually heard only on the cassette tapes the ADF distributes. Mukulu urges violence against non-Muslims and Muslims who fail to carry out jihad, including a heavy dose of invective against various international leaders: "Let curses be to Bush, Blair, the president of France�and more curses go to Museveni and all those fighting Islam." According to Lieutenant-Colonel James Mugira, Uganda's acting chief of military intelligence, "We think [Mukulu] will become the next bin Laden of Africa" (IWPR, June 6, 2005).
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4624

 

New danger from Ugandan rebel group?
Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
Date: 06 Jun 2005
An Islamic guerrilla group previously thought to be a spent force is regrouping and rearming, according to Ugandan security officials...
Kamusiime believes Turabi wants to see the "Islamicisation� of Sudan�s neighbours including Uganda.
Earlier this year, the ADF's leader, Jamil Mukulu, began distributing tape recordings of religious sermons in which he incited members to attack the government of President Yoweri Museveni, and criticised ADF members who had surrendered to the army.
Captain Kamusiime said the sermons preached that "Muslims should kill non-Muslims, and kill also Muslims who are not fighting for jihad".
In another recording, continued Kamusiime, Mukulu takes aim at the West, saying, "Let curses be to Bush, Blair, the president of France - and more curse goes to Museveni and all those fighting Islam."
Kamusiime concluded, "This is mujahedin kind of propaganda, and we think it's dangerous, especially if the message is conveyed to someone who's not educated." He added that 50 per cent of Uganda's population is illiterate.
Kamusiime estimates that there between 650 and 1,000 armed ADF fighters based at two camps in eastern DRC, and said that Mukulu has recently sent funds to these groups to help them recruit new members.
The United Nations mission in DRC is less convinced about the threat posed by the Ugandan rebel group. It comes up with a similar estimate of 1,000 fighters in the country, but its deputy spokesman Mamadou Bah says that "some of them are camp-followers or other kinds of people who make the ADF fighters seem much more than they actually are".
Under a tripartite agreement designed to disable the various DRC-based insurgent forces, the US, Uganda and Rwanda share information about rebel activity both with each other and with the DRC government. The groups under scrutiny include the Interahamwe, the remnants of the Hutu forces responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Within Uganda, the US government remains especially concerned about the LRA, which Ugandan intelligence and army sources say received military training at al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden's farm in Sudan in the mid-Nineties.
The US provides Museveni's government with non-military assistance such as vehicles and radios to help it combat the LRA.
Even though the LRA is avowedly Christian in outlook, it has received backing from Sudan's Islamic government, which has traditionally been opposed to Museveni because it alleged he was helping the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the rebel force which made peace with the Khartoum government only this year.
Despite the fact that the LRA still has a place on the US list of terrorist organisations while the ADF no longer does so, Ugandan officials insist that Mukulu's group is may be more of a menace to the international community as well as to the country itself.
"The LRA is an insurgent group which is using terrorist targets to further their cause. They're not targeting Americans [or] Israelis," said Kamusiime.
�The ADF, however, is motivated by Islamic fundamentalists - more in line with al-Qaeda ideology like other African terrorist organisations with global reach, such as the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and Somalia's Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya.�
Four years ago, the Ugandan government unsuccessfully tried to get an international arrest warrant issued for Mukulu, and now it plans to post his photo on the internet in a bid to capture him.
"We know he's going to be a very, very dangerous person,� said Mugira.
�We think he'll become the next Bin Laden of Africa."
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/RMOI-6D53DW?OpenDocument

 

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