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Uganda: rebel leader charged with killing tourists
[AFRICANEWS] The leader of a rebel group in Uganda was charged on Monday with terrorism and murder following the fatal attack on two foreign tourists and their driver by an armed commando in a national park last month.

Abdul Rashid Kyoto, alias Njovu, a leader of the Allied Democratic Forces
...established in the early 1990s through an agreement between portions of Uganda’s Salaf Tabliq Islamic sect and the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU), who said they had been sidelined by Museveni’s policies. At the time, the rebels staged deadly attacks in Ugandan villages and the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred. A Ugandan military operation later forced the ADF into eastern Congo. The ADF has since established ties with the Islamic State group. The ADF has received funding from the Government of Sudan, which has also provided supplies and training. The ADF may also have received funding from the illegal mining and logging industries of the DRC....
 (ADF) rebel group, had been arrested in early November during a Ugandan army operation against the commando group accused of killing a British and a South African honeymooner and their guide in Queen Elizabeth Park (west) on October 17.

The attack was claimed by the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 (EI) group, to which the ADF rebels have pledged allegiance. Njovu is also blamed by the authorities for a school massacre in June which left 42 people dead, mainly students.

Abdul Rashid Kyoto has been charged with terrorism, murder, aggravated robbery and membership of a terrorist organization as part of the investigation into the attack in the national park, the public prosecutor's office said in a statement on Monday.

According to the prosecutor's office, Njovu was arrested on Lake Edouard, which lies on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
 (DRC). Two other members of the commando were killed, while "the others managed to escape by boat".

The army had previously indicated that Njovu was the only survivor of the seven-member commando.

Originally Ugandan rebels with a Moslem majority, the ADF made their home in eastern DRC in the 1990s. In 2019, they pledged allegiance to the EI, which claims responsibility for some of their actions and presents them as its "Central African Province" (Iscap in English).

They are accused of having massacred thousands of civilians in the DRC in recent years and of carrying out jihadist attacks on Ugandan soil.

Following the attack on October 17, President Yoweri Museveni
...President-for-Life of Uganda. He assumed office in 1985. His primary virtue is being prefereable to both his predecessors, Idi Amin and Milton Obote...
 called on the security forces to "annihilate" the ADF rebels. The army subsequently carried out several air raids against its positions in the DRC.

This murder in one of Uganda's most famous parks has sparked fears in the tourism sector, which contributed almost 10% of the country's GDP last year, according to official figures.


Posted by: Fred 2023-11-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=683743