Islamic State attempts suicide bombing in Uganda

On June 3, the Islamic State’s Central Africa Province (ISCAP), which is locally known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), conducted an unsuccessful suicide bombing attack on Christians on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda’s capital.

Yesterday morning, a female bomber and her male motorcycle taxi driver (who authorities say was also involved in the plot) attempted to reach the Uganda Martyrs’ Basilica in the town of Munyonyo, just southeast of Kampala’s city limits.

According to local officials, the intended targets were worshippers gathered at the town’s basilica for Uganda’s Martyrs’ Day, which celebrates Uganda’s 45 Christian martyrs who were killed in the late 1800s by local traditional authorities for refusing to renounce Christianity. However, the woman’s bomb went off several hundred meters short of the intended target, killing just her and her driver. CCTV footage of the explosion shows the woman and driver on the motorcycle taxi turn onto the road leading to the Basilica before inexplicably exploding.

It was unclear from the footage whether the premature detonation was due to an intervention by security forces or an accident. Ugandan military personnel can be seen in the footage, presumably providing security for the religious event, so it is possible that the woman saw the soldiers and decided to detonate the explosive.

Ugandan security officials claim that the plot was actively thwarted in an “intelligence-led operation” that originated from an arrest days earlier of another ISCAP-linked individual who divulged information on the plot.

Authorities later identified the female suicide bomber as Aisha Katushabe, who was previously arrested in late 2021 for her role in helping move funds for ISCAP that assisted the group in conducting a series of bombings in Kampala that year. In mid-to-late 2021, the group conducted bombings in various areas of the city, including a triple suicide bombing in November 2021 that killed at least three people. Those attacks followed another suicide bombing plot in northern Uganda earlier that year.

Tuesday’s failed operation marks the second time ISCAP has utilized a female suicide bomber in such attacks. In April 2022, the group employed a female Tanzanian member to target a bar in a Congolese military base in the city of Goma, killing eight people. The Islamic State never officially claimed the Goma bombing, likely due to the role of a female terrorist. The jihadist group typically does not comment on such operations conducted by women. Similarly, the Islamic State is unlikely to claim the Munyonyo bombing—primarily because it failed but also due to the attacker’s sex.

The attempted bombing in Munyonyo also marks the ninth suicide bombing operation, successful or attempted, carried out by ISCAP since 2021. It has carried out three bombings in Congo and six attacks in Uganda. The group only adopted the tactic in 2021 due to its deepening relationship with the Islamic State. It is the first attempted suicide bombing by ISCAP overall since 2022.

The failed bombing is also the first confirmed attempted attack inside Uganda since December 2023, when cross-border raids conducted by ISCAP occurred in western Uganda, and other bombing plots from the group were thwarted in Kampala. The country had not witnessed any other cross-border activity by ISCAP’s forces since that time, though the group has continued to terrorize local communities in Congo.

The Islamic State claimed a series of attacks in Uganda throughout 2024, but none of the claims could be corroborated. The exact reasons for the series of fake attack claims in Uganda remain unknown. However, they may be related to the group attempting to project power and undermine the Ugandan military amidst losses the Islamic State sustained in Congo due to the joint Ugandan-Congolese military offensive against it.

Thankfully, ISCAP’s attempt to detonate a suicide bomber within a crowded event just outside of Kampala ended in failure. However, the event serves as a reminder that though ISCAP is based in the jungles of eastern Congo, the group still very much puts Uganda (and other regional states) within its crosshairs for conducting acts of terror.

Caleb Weiss is an editor of FDD’s Long War Journal and a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa. Ryan O’Farrell is a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa.