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In an attack on a community in southwest Uganda, militants associated with the Islamic State terrorist organization killed at least ten citizens by burning, according to authorities on Tuesday.
According to authorities, the gunmen crossed the border to target a trading center in Kamwenge. The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) is one of the deadliest militias in the conflict-torn east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Regional police spokesman Vincent Twesige stated, “Preliminary findings reveal that 10 assailants armed with SMG rifles attacked and fatally burned to death 10 people.” Twesige was alluding to submachine guns.
The attackers also torched a motorcycle and looted a store, he said.
According to Twesige, the Islamic State group has designated the terrorist group as its local affiliate, and the Ugandan army has been sent to hunt them down.
The attack occurred on Tuesday at around 2:00 am (2300 GMT Monday), just days after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni claimed that Uganda-led airstrikes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had killed at least 200 ADF rebels in September.
The majority of the ADF, a historical rebel organization in Uganda, is made up of anti-Museveni Muslims.
Created in the DRC’s east in 1995, this group quickly rose to prominence as the deadliest of several illegal groups operating in the extremely unstable area.
It has been blamed for massacres, kidnappings and looting, with a death toll estimated in the thousands.
42 persons were slain by ADF militia members in June, including 37 students at a high school in western Uganda close to the DRC border.
It was one of the bloodiest assaults on Ugandan soil since 2010, when the Islamist group Al-Shabaab, based in Somalia, claimed responsibility for two separate bombings in Kampala that left 76 people dead.
The Islamic State organization (IS), also known as the Islamic State Central Africa Province, has claimed responsibility for various ADF assaults in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo since April 2019.
According to a study released in June by UN experts, the ADF has received financial support from the Islamic State organization at least since 2019.
The United States last year placed the ADF on its list of “terrorist” organisations linked to IS.
