This archive report was first published on 29 October 2021.
On October 29, 2021, two explosions rocked a city bar and a moving bus in Mpigi town, Uganda, killing two people and injuring a senior police officer.
Four and six days after the Komamboga pork restaurant and Kampala-Masaka highway blasts, respectively, police and other security agencies still had no information about the identities of the attackers.
The masterminds, according to analysts, exploited a security loophole and detonated an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at Uncle Sam's and Ronnie's pork joints at about 9pm on Saturday, targeting a venue that was open past curfew hours and in violation of a presidential ban on bar operations.
The targeted eatery had no guard on duty, no access control, and no Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras, giving the attackers an opportunity to conduct dry runs on their target and leave the scene undetected.
According to the police spokesperson, Mr Fred Enanga, the area had at least 10 pork restaurants owned by different people, who were in competition for customers.
Gen David Muhoozi, the former Chief of Defence Forces and the current State minister of Internal Affairs, told Parliament that the suspects visited the bar when revellers were busy watching an English premiership game on television.
The Police spokesperson, Mr Fred Enanga, said during their last minutes of planning, the attackers bought drinks for other revellers in an apparent scheme to create rapport.
They occupied a table that was near a wall that gave them a good cover, where they surreptitiously planted the IED before they departed.
Gen Muhoozi said a waitress, Emily Nyinaneza, even after seeing a red flashing light of the device, still sat at the table to protect the drinks of the trio who had vanished.
When Derrick Nandabi saw the flashing lights, he inquisitively asked Emily Nyinaneza about them, and they both bent down to examine the item, which is when the object exploded, Gen Muhoozi said.
The suspects targeted an area not close to any police or CCTV cameras, with the closest camera being half-a-kilometre away and across five feeder roads.
The Ugandan security forces had to rely on eyewitnesses for their investigations, with at least four of them who saw the suspects and interacted with them under police protection for their security and to help with identifying the culprits.
Questions have been raised about why law enforcement left bars that should have been closed to operate and in addition past curfew hours, leaving the police exposed and two of its officers in custody.
On October 8, the Islamic State group claimed its first attack in Uganda, a bomb attack against a police post in the Kawempe area, near where Saturday's explosion occurred.
