Image circulating on social media shows smoke billowing from one of the bomb scenes.
[View From Kampala]
I was seated in my office on Kampala Road at Crane Chambers, Plot 38, on the third floor.
It was a slow Tuesday, one which would get lost in the impersonal rush of other days in the fullness of time.
Or so I thought.
View of one of the bombing locations.
At about 10:28 a.m., East African Time today, on this Tuesday Nov. 16, 2021, two bomb blasts went off at the Central Police Station along George Street and Raja Chambers and on the ground floor of Jubilee Insurance House along Parliament Avenue in Kampala.
Uganda Broadcasting Corporation Radio reported, at 11:18 a.m., another blast at Nakasero market. Then, at 12:15 a.m., there was an explosion near Mapeera House on Plot 44/46, which is next to Crane Chambers.
Kampala instantly became a scene of mayhem; people were filled with fear and hysteria as an anonymous feeling of dread spread its dark veil across the city.
By 12:30 am, Kampala was completely empty. As I type these words, reports of a bomb blast in Nansana, have been reported. The authorities say four people were killed and at least 30 injured.
In June last year, Nansana Uganda police arrested a suspect wanted for hurling petrol bombs at government vehicles in Kampala. The suspect in that incident was picked up from Nansana Municipality in Wakiso district, he was said to be on a motorcycle registration number UEU 391F while hurling a petrol bomb at a government vehicle registration number UG 0450T on June 23, 2020. According to Police, other suspects, said to be his accomplices, were captured on different CCTV footage carrying out attacks in different parts of the city including Katwe, Nateete and Busega.
The pattern of multiple attacks fits into Uganda’s world of blurred battle lines, and amorphous enemies. This world is fertile ground for terrorism, as terrorists have adopted what is known as “maneuver warfare” to dominate proceedings in this new happenstance.
Maneuver warfare has been defined in the United States Marine Corps doctrinal manual, Warfighting, as “a state of mind bent on shattering the enemy morally and physically by paralyzing and confounding him, by avoiding his strength, by quickly and aggressively piloting his vulnerabilities, and by striking him in a way that will hurt him most.”
The ultimate aim of this sort of warfare is not to destroy an adversary’s forces but to render them unable to fight as an effective, coordinated whole.
As Kampala fell into pandemonium this morning, I could see the town emptied of its dwellers as symptomatic of a metropolis which has been hit where it hurts the most: right in the solar plexus of the Central Business District.
Nobody yet has any answers, but we shall be hearing from the government this evening when Ugandan dictator Gen. Yoweri Museveni pronounces himself on these multiple explosion attacks.
We shall learn more as the story unfolds.
Knowing how the regime works, one thing’s for sure: the Covid-19 restrictions which set to be lifted in January and have occasioned a lockdown including a curfew, stay-at home limitations, closure of public institutions and the barring of public gatherings may be intensified in order to keep us “safe” from terrorism.
Uganda continues to spiral into the abyss of fear, terror and ever increasing danger.
Columnist Matogo can be reached at [email protected]
