| 12 Aug 12, 2010 - 3:28:25 PM |
By NICHOLAS BARIYO in Kampala, Uganda and SARAH CHILDRESS in Nairobi, Kenya
The suspected mastermind of the July 11 terror attacks in Uganda's capital said on Thursday that the deadly bombings were intended in part to target Americans for their government's involvement in Somalia.
"My rage was mainly against the Americans and Ethiopians for planting the [transitional] government in Somalia and for mistreating Muslims," said Issa Ahmed Luyima, who Ugandan and Kenyan authorities consider the main suspect in the attacks on an Ethiopian restaurant and popular bar in Kampala that left at least 79 people dead, at a news conference in Kampala. He added that he had to recruit locals because others had dropped out.
Ugandan military authorities organized Thursday's news conference to present four suspects they apprehended in recent weeks. Brig. James Mugira, the head of Uganda's military intelligence, said they were holding the session to deliver on a promise to offer "accountability to the Ugandan people."
The men seemed calm and in good health, and will be held in a military prison until their trial. In response to a reporter's question, one suspect said they hadn't been mistreated and wouldn't have agreed to discuss their involvement in the plot had they been abused.
Mr. Luyima's remarks and the comments from three other suspects, including two Ugandans he had recruited—one who was his brother—and another who was originally tapped to plan the bombings, offered a window into the operations of al Shabaab, the al Qaeda-linked Somali militant group that claimed responsibility for the attack, its first outside of Somalia.
The story of his recruitment into an extremist group, and how he was assigned to plot the attack, highlights an organization that was able to carry out a violent attack despite setbacks and sometimes reluctant recruits.
Their comments came just after another man authorities have linked to the plot was released on bail Wednesday in Kenya. Kenyan authorities had arrested Salmin Mohammed Khamis, 34 years old, on suspicion of harboring participants in the plot—including Mr. Luyima—in his home in the coastal town of Mombasa before the attack.
Mr. Khamis was arrested in 2003 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to bomb an Israeli airliner in Mombasa and a hotel. He was later acquitted, but at the time, he gave a statement to Kenyan authorities that he was affiliated with al Qaeda and was plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. So far, authorities say he hasn't been implicated further in the Kampala attacks.
Al Shabaab had initially tapped an al Qaeda-trained fighter named Muhamoud Mugisha to carry out the Kampala bombings, said Mr. Mugira.
On Thursday, Mr. Mugisha said al Qaeda recruited him in 2004 in Nairobi. His recruiters promised him he would head to Dubai, but he was sent insteadto a training camp in Somalia.
The 24-year-old Ugandan said he trained alongside at least 40 others from Uganda. He said he also worked with Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who U.S. authorities believe was behind the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. U.S. Special Forces killed Mr. Nabhan last year in Somalia.
In April, Ugandan immigration officials arrested Mr. Mugisha in the border town of Busia as he attempted to enter the country from Kenya. Al Shabaab turned to Mr. Luyima instead, he said.
His fellow suspects described Mr. Luyima, 33, as a devout Muslim who worked as a librarian at a university in Kampala before he left for Somalia last year and joined al Shabaab. They said he used religion to persuade them to participate in the plot. Mr. Luyima didn't dispute their comments.
Mr. Mugira, the intelligence chief, told reporters that Messrs. Luyima and Mugisha had been among the foreign fighters in Somalia that had bolstered the ranks of al Shabaab in the past year, and had participated in several combat missions against the African Union peacekeeping force stationed in Mogadishu, and the Somali government.
Terrorism is a capital offense in Uganda. The four suspects will be tried in a criminal court, despite their confessions, although they will be allowed to ask for leniency for cooperating with authorities.
Mr. Luyima said he had initially planned to use four suicide bombers in the Kampala attack. He said that when two Somalis abandoned the project, he was forced to rely on the remaining two bombers and then recruited other participants.
"Because I had been away from Uganda for some time, I did not trust people who were not close to me, so I used my brother," Haruma Luyima, 27, to help with the planning, he said.
He also recruited Idris Nsubuga, a 30-year-old former university student. Mr. Nsubuga, who is in custody, has confessed to detonating a bomb at the Kyadondo Rugby Club.
Mr. Luyima said he rented a safe house in Uganda, which authorities said was used to plan and execute the attacks. On July 10, Mr. Luyima and his brother scouted the targets with the bombers, they both said.
The next night, Haruma Luyima escorted the Kenyan suicide bomber to the Ethiopian restaurant. Mr. Nsubuga escorted the Somali bomber to the rugby club, then detonated a second bomb remotely, using his cellphone.
The younger Luyima, who sobbed throughout most of his statement, was supposed to detonate a fourth bomb at a bar in Makindye, a Kampala suburb, where people were gathered to watch the World Cup, but abandoned his plan when he saw the crowds of people.
"I decided to hide the bag containing the bombs in a flower garden," he said. "I knew that I had already done something evil, but decided to stop there."
Mr. Mugira declined to reveal how and where the four suspects were arrested, but another military-intelligence officer said they were picked up in Uganda and Kenya. Investigators said they used a phone Haruma Luyima allegedly abandoned in the flower garden to find anyone who had made or received calls to track and apprehend the suspects.
Source: Wall Street Journal
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