Day: January 9, 2010

US Khartoum Embassy issued attack warning. Uganda authorities learnt from embassy website

by R.Kagumire, posted in East Africa, Uganda, Uncategorized
The East African photo

The BCC says The US embassy in the Sudanese capital Khartoum has warned of a possible attack on Air Uganda planes.

The embassy said it had information that US travellers faced a potential threat between Juba in Sudan and the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

A spokesman for the Ugandan army, Lt Col Felix Kulayigye:

US warning was a surprise.

Intelligence had been known since early December.

Uganda foreign affairs office:

Allegations of attack not grounded.

US manner of the warning criticised.

Uganda authorities not informed.

“They did not inform us of this security threat, we learnt about it from the embassy’s website,” – Foreign Ministry spokesman Moawiya Osman Khalid

AFP said an Air Uganda flight was returned to Entebbe airport in Kampala when it was ordered to return.

well no suprise but there’s no information on Air Uganda website

Is US up again about going it alone? Is Uganda paying the price of ‘fighting US wars.’

Al-shabab threat: Uganda stops flights to East African countries

by R.Kagumire, posted in Uncategorized

This is information i have yet to confirm but a friend has told me that Uganda has stopped flights of Air Uganda to many parts of east Africa because of a threat from Al-shabab.

I am yet to get details but Air Uganda is not a national carrier. It is not yet known how real the plans of Al-shabab were because there has always been a threat since Uganda deployed in Somalia a peace keeping force on the request of IGAD in 2007.

Uganda in flights have not experienced a threat since the famous Entebbe incident in Iddi Amin’s years when an Air France plane from Tel Aviv was hijacked and people were taken hostage by two Palestinian miltants and two Germans in June 1976.

Uganda has also not suffered a terror attack like its neighbours Kenya and Tanzania where in 1998 US embassies were blown leaving hundreds dead.

Since the deployment in Somalia, Uganda has lost not more than 20 soldiers but the deadliest attack came September last year in the AU force compound.

Somali insurgents detonated two suicide car bombs, at African Union (AU) peacekeeping headquarter in Mogadishu, killing nine soldiers including the deputy force Commander from Burundi Maj. Gen. Juvenile Niyoyunguriza.