Police, army patrol Kampala over terror threats

By Steven Candia
The police have explained that the heightened security in the city in the morning was in response to a new terror threat.

Police said they had received intelligence indicating that a new terror outfit was planning an attack in the country and thus the heightened deployment in the city of police SWAT teams, backed by the army, drawing concern from the public.

Both the police deputy spokesperson Polly Namaye and Kampala police spokesperson Patrick Onyango said they were reacting to intelligence reports.

“‘We got intelligence reports which were also picked by the American Embassy that a new terror group was planning to attack vital government installations and that is why we had to come out strongly to secure the city,” Namaye said and appealed for clam from the public.

Among the key installations targeted by the terrorists, she said was Entebbe International Airports and Parliament, which were also secured by personnel from the police Counter Terrorism Unit (CT) and Joint Anti Terrorism (JAT) task force.

“Intelligence indicates that they were planning to attack on the fifth day of the hold day of Ramadan which may be today or tomorrow and so we could not take chances,” she said adding that the same intelligence report was forwarded to all American citizens by the US Embassy.

  Spotting body armour, heavily armed personnel of the CT personnel backed by the army, some donning camouflage came out strongly and parts of the city, taking charge for a moment at the Qualicell bus terminal where they frisked everyone accessing the place.