Four men admit to Uganda bombings

UGANDA - Four Ugandan men Thursday confessed they were behind bomb blasts that left 76 people dead in the Ugandan capital Kampala, saying they were targeting Americans.

Over 20 people have been arrested in the wake of the July 11 bomb blasts that tore through crowds of youths watching the World Cup final at a rugby club and a restaurant.

“I am indeed very sorry to Ugandans over what happened due to my actions,” Issa Ahamd Luyima, 33, told reporters at the offices of Uganda’s Military Intelligence. “Our interest was to target Americans who had planted the TFG (Transitional Federal Government) in Somalia.”

Somali insurgent group al-Shabaab, which is battling to oust the TFG, said it carried out the bombings in revenge for the presence of Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia.

Uganda and Burundi between them provide 6,000 peacekeepers to the African Union mission protecting the government in the small enclaves it controls in Mogadishu.

Luyima, Edirisa Nsubuga, 30, Mugisha Muhammed, 24, and Hassan Luyima, 23, were paraded before media by the Chief of Military Intelligence, Brigadier James Mugira, who said that security forces have arrested all the suspects in the suicide attacks.

Mugisha, who said he had been fighting with Al-Shabaab for three years, told reporters he had not been tortured or forced to confess.